Development of an intelligent injection system and its application to Resin Transfer Molding.

摘要

Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) is a procedure in composite material manufacturing in which resin and fibers are held apart until the last possible moment. In this way it can be contrasted with other manufacturing methods where the resin and fiber are combined prior to use. In RTM, unresinated fibers are held within a tool cavity and a differential pressure is applied to a supply of resin so that the resin flows into the reinforcement completely wetting it out. Reinforcements may be made of any fiber and the use of all forms has been reported, from unidirectional through woven or knitted cloths to needled and random mats and fully three-dimensional reinforcement preforms. The resin can be of a very wide range of chemistries and formulations, so long as the basic process requirements are met. Cure times can be from a few minutes to many hours. Resin injection machines vary widely, and production line design can be just as varied.;The focus of this project will be the development of an intelligent injection system and its application to RTM. In order to achieve this, the Lab VIEW program will be employed to control pressure and flow rate---the two important parameters of RTM. This system includes an injector, computer, data acquisition boards, electric system and pneumatic system. A number of experiments have been performed to find the optimal application of this system. During the manufacturing of composite parts, all the processing parameters, such as temperature, pressure, flow rate and displacement with respect to time, can be written to a computer hard disk to be analyzed later. All the data acquired during the operation can help us to understand in depth the processing of composite materials and the relationship between process, quality and property.