Numerical study of resin transfer molding (RTM) curing process

Abstract

It is a very important phase in resin transfer molding (RTM) process that resin is cured. The result of the curing process determines the quality of a part, including mechanical properties, lifecycle of the part under high temperature and chemical properties. Therefore, it is very meaningful to discuss the curing process. In our work, the code is prepared based on unstructured mesh using divergence theorem. A case is used to verify properness of the code and the results are in good agreement with the published experiment data. In the paper, some factors of materials and numerical calculation, e.g., time step, reaction heat, the whole heat conductivity of fiber and resin and fiber initial temperature, which affect result of simulation, are emphatically investigated and carefully revealed. The conclusion shows that time step, the reaction heat and heat conductivity have an important effect on the curing process, while fiber initial temperature has very little impact. These are helpful to understand and adopt the curing process in order to produce good products.

Encapsulating and Manufacture Technology Study of Impact-Resisting, Enclosed Soft Aramid Vesicle

“…Composite is solidified under some condition. Molding product was obtained after knockout [4][5][6]. RTV was firstly chosen to do the sealing experiment.…”

An Improved Method of Numerical Simulation of Resin Transfer Molding for Resin-Based Composite Materials Based on Unstructured Grid

“…Integrated formula (5), formula (8), formula (11) and formula (16), in the time of the full implicit time integration scheme, and finally get the energy equation in the unstructured grid of two-dimensional discrete format:…”

“…The author has done a lot of research on the numerical simulation of Resin-based composite materials [15][16][17][18]. In these studies, the numerical simulation can help the researches know and understand the RTM process.…”

Manufacturing and Processing of Polymer Composites

“…Efforts have been made to monitor the infusion process in order to verify that filling occurs according to prior mold filling simulations [105][106][107][108][109][110][111]. In addition, the curing process and the deformation of the tool have been modeled [112][113][114].…”