Modeling of resin transfer molding for composites manufacturing

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Makina Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2005

Öğrenci: HAKAN İPEK

Danışman: MERVE ERDAL ERDOĞMUŞ

Özet:

The resin transfer molding (RTM ) process, in which a thermosetting resin is injected into a mold cavity preloaded with a porous fiber preform, is a manufacturing method for producing advanced continuous fiber reinforced composite products with complex geometries. Numerical simulation of resin transfer molding process is an often needed tool in manufacturing design, in order to analyze the process before the mold is constructed. In this study, a numerical simulation of the resin impregnation process in RTM of composite materials is performed by using and modifying an existing simulation program. The parts that are molded in the simulations have their planar dimensions much larger than their thicknesses. Therefore, the mold filling process can be modeled as two dimensional by neglecting the variations along the thickness direction. The program is capable of simulating two-dimensional, isothermal impregnation processes through orthotropic fiber preforms of planar but complex geometries. The formulations of the physical problem, used in this study, were taken from the theory of macroscopic flow through anisotropic porous media. The formulated governing equation and boundary conditions are solved in a regular-geometry computational domain by transformation through boundary fitted coordinate system. The discretization for numerical solution is performed by the finite difference method. The current study extends the existing capabilities of the simulation program by enabling the simulation of impregnation through non-homogeneous fiber preforms. Furthermore, the capability to simulate injection from two gates (as opposed to a single gate injection that existed before) is developed and added to the program. Various one-dimensional impregnation simulations (as parametric studies) are performed to assess the influence of process parameters. Results are also compared with