Curing of Thick Thermoset Composite Laminates: Multiphysics Modeling and Experiments

Anandan, Sudharshan; Dhaliwal, Gurjot S.; Huo, Z.; Chandrashekhara, K.; Apetre, Nicole; Iyyer, Nagaraja

doi:10.1007/s10443-017-9658-9

Cited by 43 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Similar experimental studies have been conducted on thick glass fiber‐reinforced composite laminates 5 . A key factor in the reduced strength of the thick composite is the overheating due to the exothermic reaction of the resin, which affects the mechanical performance of composite laminates and can result in a drop of the interlaminar shear strength 6–8 . Therefore, predictive models that enable the tracing of the temperature and degree of cure evolution during the cure cycle of thermosets are essential to ensure good mechanical properties of the final product.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…To simulate the cure cycle of the sandwich specimens, a 2D FE model was developed because of the computational cost and relatively small difference in the accuracy compered to more complex 3D geometry. 6 The geometry represented a section in the core of the sandwich specimens to avoid edge effects. In this way, a 2D representative section of the specimen could be modeled without losing information compared to the 3D case.…”

Section: Numerical Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5 A key factor in the reduced strength of the thick composite is the overheating due to the exothermic reaction of the resin, which affects the mechanical performance of composite laminates and can result in a drop of the interlaminar shear strength. [6][7][8] Therefore, predictive models that enable the tracing of the temperature and degree of cure evolution during the cure cycle of thermosets are essential to ensure good mechanical properties of the final product. Cure simulations of thick thermosetting composites can be extensively found in the literature [9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and finite element (FE) simulations have also been developed to predict residual stresses and post-cured mechanical properties in thermoset composites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Cure simulations of thick adhesive bondlines for wind energy applications

Cassano

Dev

Maiarù

et al. 2020

J of Applied Polymer Sci

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Curing of adhesive bondlines is a critical and time-consuming operation in wind turbine blade manufacturing. Significant variation in adhesive thickness can lead to important differences in thermal histories trough the adhesive bonds due to the exothermic nature of the cure process. Reducing bondline cure cycle time and avoiding adhesive overheating are two competing factors in the design of cure temperature cycles. Predictive models on the impact of adhesive thickness variability in bondline cure temperature cycle is currently limited. Adhesive curing and temperature evolution can be simulated by finite element (FE) models coupling the heat transfer problem with the cure kinetics of the adhesive. The cure kinetics of the adhesive system was characterized by isothermal differential scanning calorimetry experiments and implemented in the FE software Abaqus/CAE by user subroutines. Predictions from the FE model were validated experimentally against temperature readings from the curing of 10, 20, and 30 mm thick adhesive bondlines. To highlight the role that predictive models potentially have in the optimization of bondline cure cycles a 2D cross section model representing the trailing edge of a wind turbine blade was used as case study. It was demonstrated that computational models enable customizing cure profiles for nonuniform adhesive thicknesses, ensuring fully cured bondlines with acceptable mechanical properties.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Section: Numerical Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cure simulations of thick adhesive bondlines for wind energy applications

Cassano

Dev

Maiarù

et al. 2020

J of Applied Polymer Sci

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“…In terms of process analysis and modeling, the computational tools were used to predict temperature gradients, [14][15][16] and based on which the optimization model of the curing temperature process curve was generally studied. [17][18][19] These computational researches have promoted the theoretical understanding of the curing stage coupling with multiple physical fields and improved the temperature uniformity to some extent. In terms of experimental studies, on-line monitoring of temperature or curing strain were broadly conducted, in which the process curves were accordingly modified to reduce the temperature and curing gradient.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Layered self‐resistance electric heating to cure thick carbon fiber reinforced epoxy laminates

Zhang

Liu

et al. 2021

Polymer Composites

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Curing of thick carbon fiber reinforced thermosetting composite laminates has been a major challenge due to the undesired through-thickness temperature gradient. In this paper, a novel layered self-resistance electric heating (L-SRE) method to cure thick laminates was proposed. The thick laminate was divided into multiple independent sub-layers, and the temperature of each sub-layer was controlled individually. The experiment's results revealed that L-SRE was able to achieve highly homogeneous temperature distribution filed throughthickness both in rapid heating and exothermic reaction stages. The maximum temperature difference of dwell stage for L-SRE process was less than 4.0 C, and the L-SRE process that had an optimized thickness of each sub-layer achieved the minimum mean temperature deviation of 2.1 C, which was 88.46% lower than that of the oven process. By using the optimized L-SRE method, the maximum value of crosslink thermal overshoot was 12.2 C (32.5 C for oven curing). Different layered temperature control strategies were explored, and the lowest energy consumption of 309.7 Wh (19.82% of oven process) was achieved by using the single-power pulsed heating. The method proposed in this paper provided a new solution for high-quality and energy-efficient curing of thick laminates.

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“…Due to the low thermal conductivity in thickness direction and extensive heat generated by chemical reaction, non-uniform temperature is commonly found in thick laminates [10][11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigation of non-uniform gelation effects on residual stresses of thick laminates based on tailed FBG sensor

Pavier

Zhong

et al. 2018

Composite Structures

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Due to the appearance of temperature gradient and non-uniform gelation, fully understanding of residual stresses is even more complex in thick laminates. In this paper, basic mechanisms of cure process were presented firstly. Then, experimental investigation of the non-uniform gelation was carried out together with characterization of necessary material properties. Tailed FBG sets were applied to monitor the cure of thick laminates with temperature gradient. The non-uniform gelation and chemical shrinkage gradient were captured successfully. Lastly, FEM analysis integrating thermal-chemical sub-model and stress-displacement sub-model was carried out to reveal the development of residual stresses. It is demonstrated that the high temperature layer gelled earlier and showed more chemical shrinkage. The chemical strain gradient would introduce compression internal stresses in prior gelled layer and introduces tensile internal stresses in later gelled layer. For the case studied here, transverse residual stress generated by non-uniform chemical shrinkage is small. The strategy used here is promising to estimate the residual stresses for more complex cases further.

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Curing of Thick Thermoset Composite Laminates: Multiphysics Modeling and Experiments

Cited by 43 publications

References 25 publications

Cure simulations of thick adhesive bondlines for wind energy applications

Cure simulations of thick adhesive bondlines for wind energy applications

Layered self‐resistance electric heating to cure thick carbon fiber reinforced epoxy laminates

Investigation of non-uniform gelation effects on residual stresses of thick laminates based on tailed FBG sensor

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