The development of unidirectional glass fiber reinforced furfuryl alcohol (FA) composites has been conducted using an in situ polymerization method. The FA prepolymer synthesized in this study was prepared from blends of FA monomer and catalyst (p-toluene sulfonic acid). The process feasibility, and kinetic analysis of the unidirectional glass fiber reinforced FA composites by pultrusion has been investigated. From the investigations of the long pot life of FA prepolymer, the high reactivity of FA and FA/glass fiber, and excellent fiber wet-out of FA resin and glass fiber, it was found that the FA resin showed excellent process feasibility for pultrusion. A kinetic autocatalytic model, d alpha/dt = A exp(-E/RT)alpha(m)(1-alpha)(n), was proposed to describe the curing behavior of FA/glass fiber composites. Kinetic parameters for the model were obtained from dynamic differential scanning calorimetry scans using a multiple regression technique.
