Enhanced carbon fiber-epoxy composites for rowing racing shells

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This project is between the Charpentier lab at UWO and Hudson Boat Works in London, Ontario. Hudson has the currentchallenge of making their boats lighter and faster while using new resins. In particular, the project will investigate eliminatingpinhole defects on the surface of epoxy resins used in manufacturing their boat shells. Their goal in this project is to examinevarious commercial and experimental resins, while developing a more efficient curing process at low temperatures to enhance thecuring characteristics and resulting mechanical properties of the epoxy resin. By understanding the effect of resin properties andcuring temperatures and the role of solvent, Hudson hopes to further improve their manufacturing process for being a world leaderin this field to integrate new cleantech manufacturing into their process. They are also interested in limiting the weight increase(ideally, decrease the weight) of their product while further improving the overall performance. In this project, Hudson will supplyUWO with a mold to make small lab sized rowing shells to investigate cure kinetics and surface performance. Also newepoxy/carbon fiber polymer chemistry will be investigated at UWO to further enhance these properties.