The temperature distribution of the mold is directly linked to the manufacturing quality of the composite component. In this paper, a bionic mold based on the analysis of a manta ray in swimming is developed to improve the thermal performance of the mold during the autoclave curing process. The bionic mold has fewer frames and better air permeability, and the mold weight is decreased by 42.95% while the stiffness is proved to satisfy the requirement. The model of the autoclave curing process which is verified by experiments is established to carry out the thermal analysis of the mold. Results show that the air velocity in the mold is increased with the bionic design, which can reduce not only the maximum temperature difference of the mold plate (−30.35%) but also the percentage of low-temperature areas. Besides, the heating rate and the heat preservation time of the mold are also improved.
The autoclave curing process of the large-scale composite stiffened panel greatly affects the manufacturing quality of the component, especially the curing quality of stiffeners and the bonding quality between stiffeners and the panel. In this paper, a multi-objective optimization method is developed to optimize the curing cycle for the composite T-stiffened fuselage panel, which aims to minimize the temperature difference within the component to achieve better forming quality. The autoclave curing model considering thermal properties of composites is established and verified by the experiment first. The response surface models are then built up with the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Box-Behnken Design (BBD). The fgoalattain algorithm is applied to solve the multi-objective optimization problem with nonlinear constraints. Results show that the maximum temperature difference of the two groups of monitoring points decreases by 22.91% and 21.42%, respectively. Besides, the total curing time is also reduced by 11 mins.
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