Measuremet of Mold Filling Times in Vibration-Assisted Liquid Composite Molding

摘要

A new vibration assisted liquid composite molding simulator apparatus has been designed, built, and tested, then redesigned and rebuilt. Preliminary data on the effects of audio frequency sinusoidal oscillations of the injected resin on the mold filling times have been obtained. There are a number of potential benefitsof vibration assistance on the liquid composite molding process, but oscillation-induced non-Newtonian shear thinning of the injected resin and the corresponding flow enhancement and reductions in mold filling time are the focal topics of this investigation. A polyacrylamide/water solution has been used as a shear-thinning resin simulator fluid, and the particular case of vibration assisted flow along the longitudinal direction of a unidirectional glass fiber preform simulator has been studied. Preliminary results show statistically significant reductions in mold filling times with the use of vibrations when compared with the mold filling times without vibrations.