How the Vacuum Infusion Process Works

There are several ways of producing carbon fiber hoods such as: traditional hand laid, hand laid then vacuum bagged, vacuum infusion and dry carbon.

Traditional hand laid is the most economical way of producing carbon fiber parts. Reinforcements (carbon fiber, fiberglass mat, etc.) are laid into a mold and manually wet out using brushes or rollers. An improvement on traditional hand laid method is to add vacuum bagged method to reduce air pockets to the minimum during final curing. However, this method can only reduce the use of resin by 5-10%. Dry carbon is the best out of all carbon fiber products and is used in professional racing series such as F1 and Super GT Japan. However, the cost of dry carbon is extremely high for daily car enthusiasts.

The most resourceful is the vacuum infusion method to produce carbon fiber hoods because the finished product will be similar to dry carbon in quality and will also be more affordable for the everyday car enthusiast.
The Vacuum Infusion Process (VIP) is a technique that uses vacuum pressure to drive resin into a laminate (fiberglass, carbon fiber, and Kevlar). Materials such as fiberglass, carbon fiber, and Kevlar are laid dry into the mold and the vacuum is applied before resin is introduced. Once a complete vacuum is achieved, resin is literally sucked into the laminate via carefully placed tubing. This process is aidedby an assortment of supplies and materials.

Following illustration shows how VIP setup works:

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