Composites

Design and fabricate a 3D mold (~ft2), and produce a fiber composite part in it

1. Mold

For this week assignment, I am going to make a gourd shape by using composites.
So I design a simple 3D gourd mold by using 123D design. I found there is a real gourd shell in our lab. So I changed my mind, I don't need to 3D print it. I can just use the real one, there comes the same effect.

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3. Cut fiber

As my mold is three-dimensional and anomalous，I need to calculate the size and shape of material by hand. I drew the outline of gourd and make it a bit bigger than the real one.

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Then I redraw it on AI software and laser cut the fiber. There was one point that is: I had 7 pieces of fiber cut, and all of that have different grains. They are reciprocal chiasmata to each other, not parallel！

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3. Making the composite

The resin (A) and its hardener (B) should be mixed with a ration of 3:1 in volume. Then I used brash to smear into fiber.

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And in order to make fiber cling to the shell, vacuum cleaner had be used to push air out. I put the composite inside a vacuum bag, and then used a vacuum cleaner to keep the fiber cling to the mold tightly. It was just like the way I use vacuum cleaner in Mold and casting week

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4. Repairing

After one night, it solidified becomes very hard and strong, that can be polished.

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