Development of a Workflow for the Design of Liquid Composite Moulding Processes

摘要

Liquid Composite Moulding (LCM) processes, such as Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM), Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding (VARTM) or Resin Film Infusion (RFI) are considered attractive processes for manufacturing low-to-medium volume composite parts of various sizes. In addition, LCM offers the versatility to produce parts of complex shapes and features. When designing an LCM process, a number of parameters must be considered. Some are constrained, some are flexible, and others are completely unconstrained and therefore the focus of the design process. Over recent years, numerical simulations of LCM processes have gained popularity as a tool to help engineers simulate the process prior to production. To run these simulations accurately, these techniques require the constituent materials to be characterized. The permeability of the reinforcement, and the rheological and kinetics behavior of the resin system are key parameters. Also, depending on the complexity of the part, meshing the model can be very time-consuming. The objective of this work is to develop a workflow for the design of an LCM processes and reduce the time/monetary cost of the simulation. By classifying the process based on constraints such as geometrical complexity and size, structural response, and inlet/outlet ports placement, an optimal simulation tool (from simple closed form to extensive numerical simulations) can be selected for the specific application. By implementing the appropriate technique for the situation, the user should be able to analyze the process and select an acceptable injection strategy. This paper presents a method for classifying a part based on the flow complexity, including a technique for breaking down a geometry into simple elements that can be analyzed using closed form techniques.1