Modeling of the Kinetics of Impregnation Process in the Production of Reinforced Carbon-Fiber Reflectors for Space Antennas

Our work provides the calculations for the permeability coefficient, values of the volume and porosity of a unit cell of a woven fabric before and after deformation based on the geometrical parameters. We investigated two types of carbon woven fabric structures: standard and spread tow. Standard type has a cross sectional shape of a cylinder. Spread tow type has a rectangular cross sectional shape. The object of the research is the space antenna reflector; its distinctive feature is the presence of the surface of double curvature. We used RAM-RTM software to model the kinetics of the process of impregnation of the reflector for the two types of carbon fabric unit cell structures. This work also investigated the influence of the grid angle between warp and welt of the unit cell on the duration of impregnation process. The results showed that decreasing the angle between warp and welt of the unit cell lead to the decrease in the permeability values. Based on the results of calculations we produced the samples of the reflectors and assessed their quality. This paper compares the theoretical and experimental results. The comparison of the two textile structures (standard and spread tow) showed that the standard textiles with circular cross section were impregnated faster than spread tows, which have a rectangular cross section.

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