Thermosetting resins were formulated by mixing solid epoxy components, hardener and accelerator at elevated temperature. These mixtures were ground into uncured, solid resin powders and dispensed onto carbon fibres using a powder printer prior to vacuum curing. Using accelerators reduced curing time from 8 h to 16 min. Manufactured cross-ply carbon fibre laminates (0°/90°/0°) had comparable mechanical properties to composites manufactured using a liquid resin system. Tack behaviour of solid epoxy resin formulations was investigated and results compared to a conventional liquid resin system. Master curves of the storage and loss moduli of both solid and liquid resin formulations were generated by applying time-temperature superposition to shear moduli between 1 and 100 rad/s at multiple temperatures. This approach was used to determine optimum processing parameters to enable resin tack for automated fibre placement, demonstrating the importance of temperature control with respect to deposition rates.

通过在高温下混合固体环氧成分，固化剂和促进剂来配制热固性树脂。将这些混合物研磨成未固化的固体树脂粉末，然后在真空固化之前使用粉末打印机将其分配到碳纤维上。使用促进剂可以将固化时间从8小时减少到16分钟。所制造的交叉层碳纤维层压板（0°/ 90°/ 0°）具有与使用液态树脂体系制造的复合材料相当的机械性能。研究了固体环氧树脂制剂的粘性行为，并将结果与​​常规液体树脂体系进行了比较。通过在多个温度下将时间-温度叠加应用于1至100 rad / s之间的剪切模量，可生成固体和液体树脂配方的储能模量和损失模量的主曲线。