| Abstract: | Phthalonitrile polymers, under development at the Naval Research Laboratory, offer promise as high temperature, high performance composite matrix materials. A fully cured resin shows outstanding thermal stability with no evidence of a glass transition temperature or Tg up to 450°C, good mechanical properties, and is easily processed into void-free components. Phthalonitrile/glass fabric composite panels have been successfully fabricated by conventional consolidation of prepregged glass and by a more recently developed simplified process, resin infusion molding. Both processes can be used to produce panels with comparable mechanical properties. More important, flammability performance of these composites, evaluated in terms of specific optical density, combustion gases, heat release, and ignitability, excels over other state-of-the-art polymer/glass composites. This finding is significant given that overcoming flammability obstacles has been the main limiting factor for use of composites in marine applications. |
