Modeling and experimental validation of the vartm process
Paper in proceeding, 2019

The vacuum assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) process is broadly used for producing large-scale and thin-walled fiber reinforced polymer composite (FRPC) components. The characteristics of the resin flow and the fibrous preform deformation, e.g., thickness variations, significantly affect the cycle time and quality of final products. To predict and simulate the process in a computationally efficient manner, we treat the 3-D resin flow as in-plane flow; and limit the preform deformation only in the normal of the mold surface. A vacuum infusion experiment is carried out for calibration and validation. The comparison shows a good match between the simulation and the experiment results. The present model efficiently predicts realistic results of the preform thickness variation and the flow front location.

Process modeling

Resin flow

Fiber preform deformation

Liquid composite molding

Author

Da Wu

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Material and Computational Mechanics

Ragnar Larsson

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Material and Computational Mechanics

Mohammad Sadegh Rouhi

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

ICCM International Conferences on Composite Materials

22nd International Conference on Composite Materials, ICCM 2019
Melbourne, Australia,

A shell theory based on two-phase porous media for process modeling of structural composites

Swedish Research Council (VR) (2013-3907), 2014-01-01 -- 2017-12-31.

Subject Categories

Applied Mechanics

Energy Engineering

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

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