A New Method for Glass-Fiber Reinforced
Composites Manufacturing: Automated Fiber
Placement with In-situ UV Curing
Dilimulati Abulizi, Yugang Duan, Dichen Li, Bingheng Lu
State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi'an 710054, P.R.China
Abstract—Automated fiber placement(AFP) is being widely used
for producing large and complex composite structures, and
ultraviolet(UV) curing has been proved as a good alternative to
traditional thermal curing as a low-cost and environment-
friendly curing method. A new manufacturing method combining
AFP and UV in-situ curing was presented in this paper to
manufacture glass fiber reinforced composites for large scale
composite structures, especially with thick curing depth.
A robot-based fiber placement machine integrating UV-LED
for the in-situ curing was developed and a flat panel was
fabricated with this method. UV transmission characteristic of
single composite layer was obtained and preliminary researches
about the effects of UV exposure on laminate performance have
been conducted. The results showed that laminates fabricated by
the in-situ curing process shows better interlaminar properties
when the degree of polymerization is about 67.7% for the first
cured layer with the incident UV irradiance. Finally, some key
issues concerning the process are discussed.
Keywords-automated fiber placement; UV curing; in-situ
curing; polymer matrix composites;
I. INTRODUCTION
Composite materials are being widely used in the
aerospace, automotive and marine industries because of their
high stiffness-to-weight and strength-to-weight ratios, good
fatigue and corrosion performance. The increasing application
of composite materials demands more automated and
innovative manufacturing technologies for reducing the cost.
The automated fiber placement technology is being widely
used for manufacturing large and complex composite
structures. However, the traditional autoclave based thermal
curing method shows some drawbacks, which are difficult to
overcome with the increasing of size and thickness of
composites parts [1-3], such as the non-uniform and
incomplete curing of parts with large residual stresses because
of the unavoidable temperature gradient in thermal curing; the
size restrictions for the composite parts because of the
autoclave volume; the high cost of autoclave with high energy
consumption at long curing time.
Ultraviolet, microwave and electron beam curing of
composites have many advantages such as short curing period
at room temperature, less pollution, low cost and etc [4-7].
These radiation curing methods are better than the traditional
thermal curing, and have been proved as good alternatives.
This research was supported by NSFC of China [50875202,51005177],
Important National Science & Technology Specific Projects in Machine Tool
[2009ZX04004], Shaanxi Province “13115” Scientific and Technological Key
Innovation Project [2008ZDKG-19], also supported by Program for
Changjiang Scholars Innovative Research Team in University [IRT0646] of
China and Research Fund of the State Key Lab of Manufacturing Systems
Engineering of China.
The concept “in-situ” curing is a novel approach that
combines the composites pre-forming and curing steps, and
was first put forward by Cirri [8]. Researchers put forward in-
situ curing manufacturing methods combining low-energy
electron beam [9-11], microwave [12] and heat sources [13, 14]
with filament winding and automated fiber placement
technologies for manufacturing composites: the curing source
cures the top one or several layers which are being
winded/placed within a short period, and this process is
repeated until the part fabrication is finished. This approach
reduces manufacturing costs greatly with the advantages of low
energy consumption, high flexibility and convince of process
control, and the problems such as high cost, poor curing
homogeneity and size restrictions existed in the traditional
autoclave or oven based thermal curing can be perfectly solved.
However, because of the heat insensitivity and low heat
transfer efficiency of thermoset composites, the in-situ curing
manufacturing of thermoset composites with traditional heating
sources is very hard to be achieved, while the alternative curing
sources used above are highly radioactive and cannot contact
with human body directly without proper shielding. Besides,
the curing equipment to be properly integrated with the pre-
forming equipments is difficult to be developed, which also
increases the operating cost. By contrast, ultraviolet can be
used in the worksite without any hulk shielding, which makes
its application more flexible at lower cost compared to other
radiation curing methods. But the ultraviolet can only cure
transparent materials with a small depth because of its limited
penetration capability. Therefore, combination of ultraviolet
curing with automated fiber placement technology is a good
solution for manufacturing large and thick composite parts with
low cost.
This paper presents a new in-situ curing manufacturing
process for glass fiber reinforced composites, which integrated
the robot-based automated fiber placement machine and UV-
LED cure source. Curing process of the parts fabricated by the
methods was monitored with fiber optic sensors and UV
transmission characteristic vs the polymerization degree was
obtained. Besides, experiments were carried out to optimize the
UV-LED irradiance to obtain better mechanical properties for
the in-situ curing process. Laminates fabricated by the in-situ
curing process shows better interlaminar properties when the
degree of polymerization is about 67.7% for the first cured

ͻ͹ͺǦͳǦ͸ͳʹͺͶǦ͵Ͷ͵ǦͺȀͳͳȀ̈́ʹ͸ǤͲͲ̹ʹͲͳͳ
layer with the incident irradiance. Finally, some key issues
concerning the process are discussed.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Materials
The mixture of epoxy acrylate CN104A75 (Sartomer,
USA) and cycloaliphatic epoxy resin UVR6105 (Dow, USA)
was used as the polymer matrix. The corresponding mixture
ratio by weight was CN104A75/UVR6105=7:3. The resulting
matrix resin has a mass density of 1.21 g·cm-3, tensile strength
of 22.64MPa, and flexural strength of 70.3MPa. High strength
glass fiber SC8-240, was purchased from Institute of Nanjing
Glass Fiber (China), with monofilament diameter of 8.0μm,
tensile strength of 4.1GPa, and elastic modulus of 80GPa.
B. Fabrication of Laminates
A robot-based fiber placement machine was developed for
the placement process and eight UV-LED lamps(nominal
irradiance 200mW/cm2 each, output wavelength 365f10nm)
were aligned two rows in staggered pattern for the in-situ
curing source. The lamps were adjusted properly to attain
uniformity in space.
Figure.1 Automated Fiber Placement Machine
Figure.2 In-situ UV Curing Manufacturing Process
C. Test of Curing History
The curing strain was measured with fiber optic sensors
from No.23 Research Institute of China Electronic Technology
Corporation Group in Shanghai(GX_201F). One layer of glass
fiber, with fiber optic sensors embedded, was placed and cured.
Two kinds of fiber optic sensor were used in the
experiment: one was bare fiber optic sensor and the other was
fiber optic sensor encapsulated with steel capillary tube and
calibrated. Bare optic sensor detects integrated strain during
the polymerization process, while encapsulated fiber optic
sensor only detects strain caused by the heat generated during
the polymerization process. By subtracting the heat-caused
strain from the integrated strain, the shrinkage strain caused by
the polymerization can be obtained and the curing history of
the composite material was obtained.
2 1
Figure.3 Curing Strain Detection with Fiber Optic Sensors(1:encapsulated
fiber optic sensor, 2: bare fiber optic sensor)
D. Test of UV Irradiance and Transmission
Irradiance of the UV light (E) was calculated using
equation (1):
E=P/S (1)
Where P is the power of UV light and S is the irradiated area.
Transmission coefficient (´) of single layer composite
was calculated using equation (2):
´=Et/E0 (2)
Where E0 is irradiance of incident UV light, and Et is
irradiance of UV light at the bottom of single composite layer.
The UV light power was tested with power meter
(FIELDMATE, COHERENT)
E. Test of Polymerization Degree
DP was tested according to China standard GB/T2576-
2005 [15]. UV-curable acrylate/epoxy resin could be dissolved
in acetone before exposing to UV light, but not after exposing
to UV light. The Soxhlet extractor was used to determine DP
of composite. The un-crosslinked ingredients in the cured
composites were extracted by acetone at 80℃ for 3 hours, and
the samples were then dried at 105±2℃ for 2 hours and
weighed. The DP Cr was obtained according to Equation (3).
ª m1  m2 º
Cr «1  m u W » u 100 (3)
¬ 1 r ¼
Where Cr is the polymerization degree (%), m1, the sample
mass before being extracted, m2, the sample mass after being
extracted, and Wr, resin content of the composite.
F. Test of Mechanical Property(ILSS)
The mechanical properties of the composites were
analyzed in terms of the ILSS. Centre-loaded short (curved)
beam shear tests were conducted according to ASTM D2344
[16]. Samples were tested on a three-point bend fixture at 1.0
mm/min in the INSTRON 1195. The average of five test
samples was taken. The interlaminar short beam shear strength
(τsbs), MPa, was calculated using equation (4).
τsbs = 3P/4wt (4)
 Where P is the maximum load, w, specimen width, and t,
the thickness of the specimen.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. The effects of polymerization to UV transmission
characteristic of composite layer
The proper incident UV irradiance for the in-situ curing
method is determined by the transmission characteristic of
glass fiber composites. So, the polymerization degree vs
irradiation time of the single layer was obtained by fiber optic
sensors as shown in Figure 4. Transmission coefficient vs
irradiation time for several layers were obtained by the power
meter as shown in the blow Figure 5.
Figure.4 Degree of polymerization vs curing time
Figure 5. Transmission coefficient vs curing time
From the above polymerization degree vs irradiation time
and transmission coefficient vs irradiation time, transmission
coefficient vs polymerization degree was obtained as shown in
the below Figure 6.
Figure 6. Transmission coefficient of single composite layer vs degree of
polymerization
It can be seen from Figure 6 that the transmission
characteristic of a single layer composite changes remarkably
with the change of polymerization degree. At the beginning,
the transmitted UV irradiance decreases because large
proportion of the incident UV irradiance was absorbed by the
photoinitiator in the resin. With the photoinitiator gradually
consumed by the polymerization reaction, less UV irradiance
was absorbed. At the same time, glass-fiber reinforced
composites become more transparent with the polymerization
enhancing [17], so the transmitted irradiance began to increase
gradually after about ten seconds, reaching stable as the
polymerization is finished. The small decrease of the
transmitted irradiance in the final stage is because with the
increasing irradiation with UV, the resin will generate yellow
substances which affect the transparency of the material.
However, this influence is very small and can be neglected
during a short period.
B. The effects of incident UV irradiance to interlaminar
shear strengths
Because of the transparency of glass fiber composites, the
ultraviolet will transmit to lower layers and influence their
curing process during the in-situ curing process. So, it is
important to choose the proper incident irradiance of the UV
light.
Parts were fabricated by the in-situ curing method with
varying incident UV irradiance and steady compaction force of
about 10N, and interlaminar shear strengths were tested to find
out the optimal incident UV irradiance. The interlaminar shear
strength vs UV irradiance and degree of polymerization can be
obtained as follows:
Figure 7. Correlation between DP and UV irradiance
Figure 8. Correlation between ILSS and DP
 It can be seen that the incident irradiance has an optimal
value as high irradiance causes quick polymerization of the
composite, which results in poor wetting between fiber and
matrix and poor adherence between adjacent layers. By
contrast, insufficient curing of composites due to the low
irradiance also causes low interlaminar shear strength. The
composites fabricated by the in-situ curing process showed
better interlaminar properties when the degree of
polymerization is about 67.7%. Details of this work will be
published in another paper soon [18].
IV. CONCLUSIONS
An in-situ UV curing manufacturing method-combining
the UV curing technology with the automated fiber placement
process was developed for polymer composites fabrication.
The wet glass-fiber was cured layer by layer with 365nm UV-
LED light while being auto-placed, rather than the traditional
method of curing a thick bulk composites laminate in an
autoclave after total layup was completed. This method has
been proved as an efficient and low-cost way to fabricate fiber
composites as the curing of the composites was finished rather
quickly with low energy ultraviolet sources. Besides, the UV
transmission characteristic of the composite layer changes
greatly with the change in polymerization degree, which
affects effective curing of lower layers and interlaminar
bonding. Experimental results show that the composites
fabricated by the in-situ curing process showed better
interlaminar properties when the degree of polymerization is
about 67.7% for the first cured layer with the incident
irradiance. At the same time, there are certain issues relating
the fabrication process and properties of the parts existed:
1) The controlling of resin content and delivering of the
wet fiber for the placement process has been a tough task as it
is different from the dry carbon prepregs feeding used
normally. The UV curable prepregs with certain stiffness
might be needed to carry out the placing process of the glass
fiber composites successfully.
2) The interlaminar strength of the parts fabrication with
the above material at the optimized UV exposure is much
lower than the traditional thermal cured composites. So,
extensive researches about the UV curable resin and the
manufacturing process parameters will be carried out in the
future.
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