The influence of different process variables on the void content in resin transfer modling (RTM) has been investigated experimentally. The moldings were made in a flat mold filled by a parallel flow from one edge of the laminate to the other. The viods were found concentrated in a narrow region close to the ventilation side of the laminate. The void volume fraction in this region was almost constant and dropped over a short distance to basically no voids in the rest of the laminate. Micrographs from cross sections in different directions revealed that the voids were of two different types, long cylinderical bubbles inside the fiber bundles. An efficient way of reducing the void content was to use vacuum assistance during mold filling. This technique was benefical both for the magnitude of the void content and for the extent of the void region. The void content with the highest level of vacuum assistance (≈︁ 1 kPa absolute pressure), was practically negligible. Strong indications for void generation by mechanical entrapment at the flow front was found. The lowering of the void content with vacuum assistance can be interpreted as aresult of compression of voids when the vacuum is released and a higher mobility of voids created at a lower pressure.
Seal surface topography typically consists of global-scale geometric features as well as local-scale roughness details and homogenization-based approaches are, therefore, readily applied. These provide for resolving the global scale (large domain) with a relatively coarse mesh, while resolving the local scale (small domain) in high detail. As the total flow decreases, however, the flow pattern becomes tortuous and this requires a larger local-scale domain to obtain a converged solution. Therefore, a classical homogenization-based approach might not be feasible for simulation of very small flows. In order to study small flows, a model allowing feasibly-sized local domains, for really small flow rates, is developed. Realization was made possible by coupling the two scales with a stochastic element. Results from numerical experiments, show that the present model is in better agreement with the direct deterministic one than the conventional homogenization type of model, both quantitatively in terms of flow rate and qualitatively in reflecting the flow pattern.
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