Manufacturing of unidirectional glass-fiber-reinforced composites via frontal polymerization: A numerical study

Abstract Frontal polymerization (FP) is explored as a faster and energy-efficient manufacturing method for dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) matrix, E-glass-fiber-reinforced composites through a series of numerical simulations based on a homogenized reaction-diffusion model. The simulations are carried out over a range of values of fiber volume fraction using (i) a transient, nonlinear, multi-physics finite element solver, and (ii) a semi-analytic steady-state solver. We observe that the front velocity and temperature decrease with an increase in the fiber volume fraction until a critical point is reached, beyond which FP is no longer observed as the front is quenched. To highlight the effect of the material properties of the reinforcing phase, the dependencies of the front velocity, width and maximum temperature on the fiber volume fraction obtained for glass/DCPD composites are compared to those associated with carbon/DCPD composites.