Abstract: The composites have widely used in the aerospace and automotive field for the excellent performance. However, the high cost has hindered its further use and production of the high property composites with low cost has obtained the most concerns. In the present study, the hot-press tackified process was provided to improve the disadvantage of the VARTM of low mechanical property by using the PES (Polyethersulfone) film material interval stacked into the fabrics under certain temperature and pressure to get the modified preforms. Finally, the modified composites were obtained with the VARTM on the modified preforms. The pressures of 0.1 MPa, 0.3 MPa and 0.6 MPa were used to study the effect of tackifier pressure on the tensile strength and modulus on the modified composites, as compared to the unmodified composites. The results indicate that the tensile strength of the modified composites for the three tackifier pressures have improved by 16.78%, 41.21% and 29.47% respectively, and the tensile modulus have improved by 2.48%, 19.01% and 13.22%, which provide the guidance to obtain the high performance composites with low cost process of VARTM.

Key words: composites, tackified pressure, PES film, VARTM, tensile property