Begin by heating the glass fiber fabric at 60 degrees Celsius for eight hours. Then, paste an isolation film on the acrylic sheet to prevent the resin from bonding. Position the mold in the laying area.
Gently mix the resin and hardener for five minutes before placing it in a vacuum chamber to remove air bubbles. Place a non-porous release film on the mold and secure it with tape. Then, lay one Peel Ply on the non-porous release film.
Pour epoxy resin on the film and evenly distribute it throughout using a scraper. Next, ply the first fiber fabric on the resin. Roll the fabric with a naked roller to ensure bubble removal and complete resin infiltration into the fabric.
Again, pour and evenly spread the resin on the fabric using a scraper and continue till all the fabric has been used. Place a Peel Ply on the fabric and manually remove air bubbles by scraping in one direction. Lay a perforated release film followed by a breather fabric.
Position the suction channel and breathable pad to one side. Secure a circular heat-resistant tape with an acrylic sheet outside the mold and attach the vacuum bag at the top of the device to create a closed space. Apply vacuum for 10 hours at room temperature, then switch off the vacuum pump and maintain quiescence for 14 hours.
Cure the laminates completely at 80 degrees Celsius for 16 hours before measuring the fiber volume fraction. Comparison of laminates fabricated by the wet hand layup method with and without the vacuum bag process revealed that the vacuum bag assistance, the fiber volume fraction of the laminates increased by 15.78%and their average thickness reduced to 2.11 millimeters.
