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Modeling and Simulation of Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding Process with Flexible Tooling

Ghorban Nia Hassankiadeh, Arash | 2015

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 47155 (45)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Aerospace Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Abedian, Ali
  7. Abstract:
  8. Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) which is one of the categories of Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) process, is considered as one of the most important process in polymer composite manufacturing. To improve this manufacturing method and reaching higher qualities, numerous modified methods has been developed. One of these modified methods is Vaccum Assisted Resin Trasnfer Molding with Flexible Tooling which is considerably applicable in manufacturing parts with high quality, large and complex geometry. Although, this manufacturing method has variety of advantages, there are some problems such as void formation making production difficult and dependent to experimental trial and error. So numerical simulation could be considered as a tool to simulate process. In this regards, grasping the dominant physics of the process, modeling and simulation of the impregnation of the mold having the goal of making process independent to trial and error, has special importance and become the topic of many researchs. Numerous progects has been dedicated to simulation of this composite manufacturing process. The effect of physical phnomenas such as preform compaction, lead-lag effect and flexible tooling has been considered in previous works. But molds with complex geometries and their effect on process which could change the dominant behavior of the resin propagation seems to be missing in researchs. In this regards, study of the effect of complex geometry on preform impregnation has been choosen as the major concentration in this work. In order to simulate the process, physical assumptions such as multi-phase flow and fluid propagation in porous media has been modeled in ANSYS-CFX and the effect of geometrical parameters has been analysed. Results show different acpets of process modeling with special focus of geometrical parameters of the mold. The model developed to concider this geometrical effects is much stronger than previous models in similar researches and results fit better to independent experimental data. The lead lag effect observed in corners show the strength of new model in simulation of mold impregnation which previous models were incapable of simulating this effect in complex geometries. On the other hand, this lead lag effect could totally change the propagation behavior and make gravity effects considerable in process simulation
  9. Keywords:
  10. Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) ; Multiphase Flow ; Composite Materials ; Porous Media ; Vacuum Infusion ; Flexible Tooling

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