Simulation-based optimisation for injection configuration design of liquid composite moulding processes: A review

Chai, Boon Xian; Eisenbart, Boris; Nikzad, Mostafa; Fox, Bronwyn; Blythe, A.; Blanchard, P.; Dahl, Jeffrey

doi:10.1016/j.compositesa.2021.106540

Cited by 23 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 78 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The Control Volume Finite Element approach has been a preferred route for homogenized simulations to predict the flow evolution, fill times, and has been used for process optimization of RTM and its variants such as VARTM (Correia et al, 2004;Sas et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2016Wang et al, , 2017bCaglar et al, 2021b;Chai et al, 2021) as well as for purposes such as predicting the formation of macroscale voids (Park et al, 2011;Park and Lee, 2011), predicting the permeability (Lugo et al, 2014;Yun et al, 2017;Caglar et al, 2018;Godbole et al, 2019) and changes in the flow patterns induced by inserts or race-tracking channels as well as in part manufacturing around inserts (Matsuzaki et al, 2013;Sas et al, 2015;Pierce and Falzon, 2017) and as a predictive tool in active control of these processes (Alms et al, 2011;Matsuzaki et al, 2013). Several works have made use of existing flow simulation software such as LIMS and introduced additional terms to account for the dual scale effects (Schell et al, 2007;Lawrence et al, 2009;Simacek et al, 2010;Facciotto et al, 2021).…”

Section: Unsaturated Flow Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capillary Effects in Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Processing: A Review

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Capillarity plays a crucial role in many natural and engineered systems, ranging from nutrient delivery in plants to functional textiles for wear comfort or thermal heat pipes for heat dissipation. Unlike nano- or microfluidic systems with well-defined pore network geometries and well-understood capillary flow, fiber textiles or preforms used in composite structures exhibit highly anisotropic pore networks that span from micron scale pores between fibers to millimeter scale pores between fiber yarns that are woven or stitched into a textile preform. Owing to the nature of the composite manufacturing processes, capillary action taking place in the complex network is usually coupled with hydrodynamics as well as the (chemo) rheology of the polymer matrices; these phenomena are known to play a crucial role in producing high quality composites. Despite its importance, the role of capillary effects in composite processing largely remained overlooked. Their magnitude is indeed rather low as compared to hydrodynamic effects, and it is difficult to characterize them due to a lack of adequate monitoring techniques to capture the time and spatial scale on which the capillary effects take place. There is a renewed interest in this topic, due to a combination of increasing demand for high performance composites and recent advances in experimental techniques as well as numerical modeling methods. The present review covers the developments in the identification, measurement and exploitation of capillary effects in composite manufacturing. A special focus is placed on Liquid Composite Molding processes, where a dry stack is impregnated with a low viscosity thermoset resin mainly via in-plane flow, thus exacerbating the capillary effects within the anisotropic pore network of the reinforcements. Experimental techniques to investigate the capillary effects and their evolution from post-mortem analyses to in-situ/rapid techniques compatible with both translucent and non-translucent reinforcements are reviewed. Approaches to control and enhance the capillary effects for improving composite quality are then introduced. This is complemented by a survey of numerical techniques to incorporate capillary effects in process simulation, material characterization and by the remaining challenges in the study of capillary effects in composite manufacturing.

show abstract

Section: Unsaturated Flow Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capillary Effects in Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Processing: A Review

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Linear flow experiments are conducted by monitoring a linear flow front as it travels through a rectangular sample of the reinforcement material from one side to the other side. While radial flow experiments trace an elliptical flow front in two dimensions where the injection gate is at the centre [1,3]. The reinforcement permeability value is depending on the type of fibre and the viscosity resin used for the product.…”

Section: 𝑄 = 𝐾𝐴∆P 𝜇𝐿 (1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The vacuum infusion process is one of the out-of-autoclave technologies and it is a potential alternative to the autoclave for manufacturing composite structure components [1]. Vacuum infusion offers an alternative to an existing process by combining low investment in material and equipment compare to the autoclave process [1]. The infusion method is based on the principle of a pressure difference between the resin supply and the vacuum bag or cavity [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The equation governed in this process is based on Darcy's Law as shown in Eq. ( 1) with an assumption that Newtonian fluids are traveling at low velocity through a porous medium [1]. Where Q is a volumetric flow (m 3 /s), K is a permeability (m 2 ), A is cross section (m 2 ), ΔP is fall of the pressure, μ is viscosity resin (Pa.s) and L is a covered length (m).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Vacuum Infusion Simulation for Radome Manufacturing Using Woven Flax Fibre and Glass Fibre

Haris

Aris

Zulkifli

et al. 2021

ARFMTS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The vacuum infusion method is emerging to produce composite parts, especially thin wall structure aircraft radome. Ansys Fluent is used in the optimization phase for mould filling analysis on aircraft radome part. The permeability fibre is referring to the physical property of the fibre reinforcement to allow fluids to permeate it, thus it is correlated with the viscosity of the resin used. In this work, flax fibre, glass fibre and low viscosity epoxy resin are used to determine the permeability value of flax fibre, glass fibre and hybrid without using a flow medium. In-plane experiment on reinforcement fibre permeability is conducted and all reinforcement fibre have similar fibre architecture and weight. The development of a digital model from a top partial aircraft radome is obtained through a 3D scanner and CATIA. Ansys Fluent is used to optimize the location of the injection line and air vent for the epoxy. The Ansys Fluent analysis model is validated through the in-plane experiment filling time result for a flat model. Based on the simulation analysis, the location of the injection line is placed at the perimeter and the air vent at the centre. The filling time from the simulation for the flax fibre and hybrid fibre was estimated around 10 to 11 minutes. However, the filling time for glass fibre is approximate 2 hours which is longer than epoxy gel time. Furthermore, this method can be used in mould filing scenarios of thin wall structure within gel time of the resin.

show abstract

“…The goal of most of the developed models of the vacuum infusion process is to understand the evolving dynamics of the formation of a resin flow pattern in a porous preform. Only a small part of the developed models was used in algorithms for inverse problems of optimization of quality [38][39][40][41] and (or) process productivity [42,43], and also to accept the tradeoff between quality and cost [44,45]. Two classes of parameters are most often used as the design variables: parameters of the process layout (number and location of injection gates and vacuum vents, their throughput) and process modes (temperatures of injected resin and preform heating, pressure in the vacuum line and in the resin injection gate).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Criteria Decision Approach to Design a Vacuum Infusion Process Layout Providing the Polymeric Composite Part Quality

Shevtsov

Zhilyaev

Chang³

et al. 2022

Polymers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The increasingly widespread use of vacuum assisted technologies in the manufacture of polymer-composite structures does not always provide the required product quality and repeatability. Deterioration of quality most often appears itself in the form of incomplete filling of the preform with resin as a result of the inner and outer dry spot formation, as well as due to premature gelation of the resin and blockage of the vacuum port. As experience shows, these undesirable phenomena are significantly dependent on the location of the resin and vacuum ports. This article presents a method for making a decision on the rational design of a process layout. It is based on early forecasting of its objectives in terms of quality and reliability when simulating its finite element model, on the correlation analysis of the preliminary and final quality assessments, as well as on the study of the cross-correlation of a group of early calculated sub-criteria. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by the example of vacuum infusion of a 3D thin-walled structure of complex geometry.

show abstract

Simulation-based optimisation for injection configuration design of liquid composite moulding processes: A review

Cited by 23 publications

References 78 publications

Capillary Effects in Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Processing: A Review

Capillary Effects in Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Processing: A Review

Vacuum Infusion Simulation for Radome Manufacturing Using Woven Flax Fibre and Glass Fibre

Multi-Criteria Decision Approach to Design a Vacuum Infusion Process Layout Providing the Polymeric Composite Part Quality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About