E-Glass Infusion – Keys to Successful E-Glass Infusion

E-glass infusion is an efficient, worker-friendly layup process that produces consistent part quality with repeatable weight, making production-friendly parts for moderate volumes more manageable than open molding or wet layup for structurally demanding parts. E-glass infusion requires keeping things warm. Resin gel times depend heavily on temperature, and both mold and stack temperatures must remain optimal to enable resin to gel quickly and comfortably. When heating, stack temperatures should remain comfortable to handle for all parties involved without becoming difficult to manipulate. As with the structure itself, selecting reinforcement that facilitates infusion can also be essential. Composite parts modifications Woven and stitched fabrics feature channels for resin to flow more freely than large clumps of unidirectional fibers packed tightly. Some reinforcement manufacturers even sell infusion-specific materials that include extra stitching, wider spaced fiber bundles or built-in flow media between plies for optimal results. A successful infusion system requires some special tools: vacuum bags, feed lines, clamps and various buckets and catch-pots that deliver resin into and out of molds. A point-and-shoot infrared thermometer gun should be utilized for monitoring both surface stack temperature and bucket resin air temperatures – as well as providing visual heat maps of your operation – especially helpful when trying to identify areas of the stack where cooling down or not heating up quickly enough – particularly useful when testing integrity of vacuum bags!