Numerical Simulation of Edge Effect in Resin Transfer Molding for Plain-weave Fabric
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ISSN 1229-9197 (print version) ISSN 1875-0052 (electronic version)
Numerical Simulation of Edge Effect in Resin Transfer Molding for Plain-weave Fabric Wenkai Yang, Shihong Lu*, and Wenhao Liu College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China (Received September 11, 2019; Revised January 6, 2020; Accepted January 11, 2020) Abstract: Plain-weave fabric is a kind of fiber preform which has been commonly used in resin transfer molding (RTM) to manufacture polymer composites. However, the edge area of plain-weave fabric is easy to shed yarns which will cause the uneven distribution of permeability between edge channel and center of mold in filling process of RTM. Meanwhile, the uneven distribution of permeability will cause the edge effect and seriously affect the final quality of composite materials. In this paper, a method to numerically calculate the permeability of edge channel which fully considers the edge area of plainweave fabric is proposed. The experiment and simulation of edge effect in filling process are performed. The results show that the simulation of edge effect which applies the edge channel’s permeability calculated by this method are in good agreement with the experimental results. The research in this paper is meaningful to improve the accuracy of edge effect simulation so as to provide a reference for the design of mold structure. Keywords: Permeability, Edge effect, Computer modeling, Fibers, Resin transfer molding
final products [9]. Therefore, many experts have studied the edge effect in filling process. Costa et al. [10] used the Navier-Stokes equation and Darcy’s law to describe the flow in edge area and fiber preform, respectively. Young et al. [11] proposed an equivalent permeability model to simulate the edge effect in filling process. Yang et al. [12] developed a mathematical model for calculating edge permeability. As shown in equation (1), the mold thickness (h) and width of edge area (d) are taken into account in the model. Ding et al. [8,13] used equation (1) to simulate the edge effect and took into account the change of resin viscosity and curing reaction.
Introduction Resin transfer molding is a process for producing fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites, which mainly includes the laying of fiber preforms, filling process and curing process [1-3]. For its advantages of low cost, high efficiency and pollution-free, it has been rapidly promoted in the fields of aerospace, automobile manufacturing, wind power generation and so on [4-7]. In the filling process of RTM, the non-uniform distribution of fiber permeability will cause non-uniform distribution of flow front. Especially for the edge effect which caused by the non-uniform distribution of permeability between the fiber preform and edge channel of mold [8]. Figure 1 shows the dry spot formation process caused by edge effect. It can be seen that the resin flow in the edge of mold is much faster than that in middle of mold. The resin in the edge area
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