• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.88-95
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• 2020

Currently, Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (FRP) composite materials are used in many industrial fields, owing to their superior stiffness and specific strength compared to metals. However, there are issues with FRP inefficiency, due to low productivity of such materials, environmental problems they pose and long curing times needed. Trying to address these issues, research was conducted towards the development of a FRP composite material with excellent properties and short production time, introducing a curing method using a UV lamp. Four types of composite materials were prepared, cured with catalyst or UV (CZ: Catalyst + ZNT 6345, CR: Catalyst + RF 1001 MV, UVZ: Photoinitiator + ZNT 6345, and UVR: Photoinitiator + RF 1001 MV). Examination of the chemical and mechanical properties of these composites showed that UV-cured materials performed better than the catalyst-cured ones. These results indicate that the production process of FRP composite materials can be simplified by using a UV lamp for curing, resulting in composite materials with the same quality, but reduced production time by about 70% compared to currently used practices. This advancement will contribute greatly to the composite material industry.