An adaptive activation energy method for predicting resin curing behavior and thermal overshoot in thick CFRP plates

Abstract This study concerns the importance of curing kinetic models for the prediction accuracy of the thermal overshoot in the curing process of thick polymeric composite plates. An adaptive activation energy (AAE) method was proposed to determine an accurate curing kinetic model with adaptive activation energy (CK‐AAE). Then the temperature field model of the autoclave curing process was established based on the CK‐AAE equations for predicting the curing thermal overshoot of thick polymer‐matrix composite plates. The prediction accuracy of the curing degree using the CK‐AAE model was improved greatly compared with the common curing kinetic models. And the predicted curing thermal overshoot of thick polymeric composite plates yielded good agreement with the measured results from the autoclave curing experiments. Moreover, it was observed that the curing thermal overshoot was more susceptible to the laminate thickness and less affected by the stacking sequence.