Applications of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) at temperatures over 150–200 °C are becoming common in aerospace and automotive applications. Exposure of CFRP to these temperatures can lead to permanent changes in their mechanical properties. In this work, we investigated the effect of thermal ageing in air on the strength of carbon fabric/epoxy composites. To this end, accelerated artificial ageing at different temperatures was performed on carbon fabric/epoxy specimens. The flexural and interlaminar shear strengths of the aged specimens were assessed by three-point bending and short beam shear tests, respectively, and compared to those of unaged samples. For ageing at temperatures below the glass transition temperature of the resin, $T_g$, a moderate reduction of strength was found, with a maximum decrease of 25% for 2160 h at 75% $T_g$. On the other hand, a rapid strength decrease was observed for ageing temperatures above $T_g$. This was attributed to degradation of the epoxy matrix and of the fibre/epoxy interface. In particular, a 30% strength decrease was found for less than 6 h at 145% $T_g$. Therefore, it was concluded that even a short exposure to operating temperatures above $T_g$ could substantially impair the load-carrying capability of CFRP components.

Resin transfer molding (RTM) technologies are widely used in automotive, marine, and aerospace applications. The need to evaluate the impact of design and production critical choices, also in terms of final costs, leads to the wider use of numerical simulation in the preliminary phase of component development. The main issue for accurate RTM analysis is the reliable characterization of the involved materials. The aim of this paper is to present a validated methodology for material characterization to be implemented and introduce data elaboration in the ESI PAM-RTM software. Experimental campaigns for reinforcement permeabilities and resin viscosity measurement are presented and discussed. Finally, the obtained data are implemented in the software and then compared to experimental results in order to validate the described methodology.