Simplified Mold Filling Simulation

in Resin Transfer Molding

ZHONG CAI
Materials Division
Lord Corporation
Erie, PA 16514
(Received November 5, 1991)
(Revised April 27, 1992) ,

ABSTRACT: A simplified mold filling simulation is developed to estimate the process

variables for resin transfer molding (RTM) of structural composite parts. This approach
uses very limited calculations and needs only microcomputer facilities. Resin flow in RTM

processes is considered to follow Darcys law. Both Newtonian fluid and power-law fluid
are studied. Mold sections are decomposed as a combination of simple geometry shapes,
such as rectangular, circular, trapezoid, spheric or conic sections. Closed form solutions
are derived for each of these simplified shapes. The total mold filling time can then be esti-
mated, as well as the required inlet pressure or flow rate. Compared with more sophis-
ticated simulation programs, the computer time and user interface effort are greatly re-
duced.

INTRODUCTION
(RESIN TRANSFER
MOLDING) process is one of the tech-
newly developed
TM
niques in manufacturing composite parts and The success of
structures.
RTM involves the selection of matrix materials and preforms, surface treatment
of fibers, design of the mold, arrangement of the inlets and outlets, and control
of temperature, vacuum state, pressure, and flow rate. Some of the common
defects in RTM processes, such as dry patch, fiber washout, and voids, result
from the lack of control of the resin flow. Therefore a good understanding of the
resin flow is crucial to the final quality of the RTM products.
Research workers have been very active in studying and modeling RTM pro-
cess in recent years. There are many experimental and analytical studies on
various aspects of the RTM process. An important aspect of these studies is the
development of the simulation software. One of the early works is the TGMOLD
series program from the University of Delaware [1-5]. This program includes the
physics of resin flow and heat transfer involved in the RTM process. It can
simulate a 2-D mold filling process and uses the boundary-fitted coordinate sys-
tem to transform irregular mold shapes into rectangular computational domains.
The other group is from the Ohio State University [6-10]. Their program uses

2606
 2607

the finite element method with the control volume approach. Therefore complex
geometry can be handled more efficiently. They also include the heat transfer
effect between the fluid resin and fibrous preforms. Their simulation also involves
various 2-D and 3-D geometries.
Although these simulation programs are available for the process modeling,
they usually need large computer facilities and consume a lot of CPU time. They
also require a great user interaction effort. Other numerical problems, such as
stability and convergence, are very often encountered in the simulation. It will be
a great help if some type of simplified simulation model can be developed which
can provide estimations of process variables, such as the filling time, the required

pressure, etc. The goal of this work is to develop a simplified mold filling pro-
gram to meet the application demands.
One of the characteristics of RTM which differs from other similar processes
such as SRIM is that the resin flow and mold filling stage can often be separated
from the cure stage. In other words, the major cure reaction of the resin matrix
takes place after the mold filling stage. This makes it possible to develop a resin
flow model without being involved with heat transfer and cure reaction modeling.
This is reasonable if the flow time is relatively short and the viscosity of the resin
does not change dramatically.
In this study we start from the I-D simplified flow analysis, and solve many
representative mold section shapes. Then we handle the complicated mold shape
by decomposing it into many consecutive simple sections. For each component
section, we derive a closed form solution which involves only limited calcula-
tions. In more general cases, the solution needs limited numerical integrations.
Then we use these solutions as &dquo;building blocks&dquo; to obtain the total filling time es-
timation. This approach is also discussed by Lee and Castro in Reference [11].
Figure 1 illustrates a mold filling example, where numbers represent different
filling steps. The simulation results are compared with those of using other ad-
vanced simulation programs.

Figure 1. Example of &dquo;decoupled&dquo; mold filling sections.

2608

SIMPLIFIED MOLD FILLING FLOW ANALYSIS

As discussed in other papers about the consolidation and resin flow in compos-
ite manufacturing [12,13], and in other RTM modeling work summarized in the
introduction section, the resin flow can be reasonably treated by Darcys law. For
the I-D flow situation, this relation between the flow rate and the pressure gradi-
ent can be written as

where all symbols are defined in the Nomenclature Section unless otherwise
specified. The minus sign takes into account the different directions of q and the
pressure gradient. If we assume there is no preform movement during the flow

process, the flow front movement condition is

We assume that the flow front moves forward uniformly, so that I-D flow is
maintained all the time. We also assume the inlet is at .~ =
_ro , and the outlet is
at x = vf. The initial condition of this flow process is A =
Xo at t = to . The
boundary condition at _r .;o could be either a prescribed flow rate qo, or a
=

prescribed fluid pressure po . This I-D simplified flow is shown in Figure 2.

Now we consider that the mold section has some variations along the length,
but the flow front movement can still be approximated as one-dimensional. For
example, the flow front in a slightly tapered channel is always perpendicular to
the inlet side, and the flow front in a circular section always keeps the circular
shape. Therefore we can keep using this I-D simplified analysis. We assume the
cross section area of the mold perpendicular to the flow direction is A = A (.r),
and Ao is the area of the inlet. The continuity condition is

In the real process, the resin viscosity A is usually a function of time, tempera-
ture, and the degree of cure of the resin material, and the preform permeability
K could vary at different locations or be a function of time if the resin flow pushes
the preform to move. In the discussion here, we assume both it and K are constant
for the simplification of the solution. This is probably reasonable if the RTM pro-
cess time is much shorter than the resin pot life, and if woven or braided preforms
with high fiber volume fraction are used.
The two different inlet boundary conditions can be applied to different molding
cases. In the case of injecting resin with very low fiber volume content, a constant
inlet flow rate qo is maintained. In this case Equations (2) and (3) can be solved
directly to obtain the wet length .r versus time t. In the case of very high fiber
volume fraction, a substantial inlet pressure has to be applied to squeeze the resin
 2609

Figure 2. Simplified 1-D resin flow in RTM process.

into the preform. This is often the case when RTM is used for structural compos-
ite parts. The following discussion involves the pressure boundary condition
only, or po constant.
=

To obtain the relation between the inlet pressure and the flow rate, we assume

Then by using Equations (1) and (3), and by assuming at the flow front ~ =
0,
we have ,

Since we only solve the case of the inlet condition of p = po , at A =

.ro , we inte-
grate Equation (2) by using relation (5) and obtain

If we replace .x withvf and t with t, the mold filling time can be solved from this
2610

relation. The integration can be done directly on several simplified mold sec-
tions. For other mold sections, it can be done numerically.

MOLD FILLING FLOW WITH MULTIPLE SECTIONS

We assumethat the fluid fills the first section first, then it enters the second sec-
tion, and so on.The continuity conditions hold for both the flow and the fluid
pressure. After the first section is filled, we have the pressure drop condition of
that section as

where F,(x) refers to the mold shape of the first section, .r, is the position at the
interface of the first and the second sections, and p, refers to the pressure at .r, .
The flow rate q, at x, can be derived according to the continuity condition as

where

By using these relations, we have the relation between p, and q, as

where C, is a constant which is related to the mold shape, fluid viscosity, and pre-
form permeability, and can be written as

With the assumption that F and K, are constant, C, is constant. These relations
show that there is a linear relation between the pressure p, and the flow rate q,.
This relation of p, and q, is also the boundary condition for the flow in the second
section.
 2611

For flow in the second section, we have similar relations between the pressure
and the flow rate as

where

The flow front condition is

By using the linear relation between q, and p,, we can obtain

This can be integrated to derive the filling time for the second section, which
gives

- -.
J

The right side of the equation is a constant related only to the mold shape of
the sections.
If more than two sections are involved, this approach can still be applied simi-
larly. Assuming that we have already filled (k - 1) sections and we are filling the
kth section. The pressure drop for each filled section is
2612

where F; (~) is defined as

and A;_, is at the position where flow starts entering the j th section. Here we
assume that the permeability of each section is different so that K; is used. The
continuity condition is

We define G, and Ej as

By using the above relations, we have

The left side of the expression is just a constant related to the mold shape, the
permeability and the resin viscosity. With this linear relation ofpk_, and qk-1, we
can then solve for the flow in the kth section, as we have done in the case of the
second section.
We define C,-, as -

By using the similar approach, the filling time of the kth section can be
solved as

With the known mold shape and the permeability of the preform, these con-
 2613

stants Cj ( j 1,2,.. ,~) can be solved separately. The filling time of each sec-
=

tioncan be obtained afterwards. For most of the simplified mold sections, the in-
tegration can be done directly. Otherwise numerical integration scheme can be
applied.
SOLUTIONS FOR SIMPLIFIED MOLD SECTIONS
We can use these derived relations to solve some simplified mold sections,
which are shown in Figures 3 and 4. The integrations can be done analytically on
these sections. Therefore we will have closed form solutions. Following are the

Figure 3. Selected 2-D simplified mold sections.

2614

Figure 4. Selected 3-D simplified mold sections.

results of 8 selected mold shapes. Although we are discussing 2-D and 3-D struc-
tures, the assumption is that we still have I-D flow front movement in these sec-
tions, which is the key approximation for this approach. Figure 3 shows 2-D
simplified mold sections, and Figure 4 shows 3-D sections.
(a) Straight channel with a constant width, or h =
ho
 2615

(b) 2-D channel with a varying width (linear), or h =

ho + a(x - xo) and

(c) 2-D channel with a varying width (parabolic), or h =

ho + a(x - xo)
+ b (x - xo)2/ho
2616

For the special case of a = 0:

(d) 2-D circular section, or h =

hox/.ro

(e) 3-D square channel with a varying width, or h = lro + a (x - xo) and a -
( ~1 f j10 ) ~ (-CI -t o )
 2617

(g) 3-D circular section with a varying thickness,

/!o]A-/.~

(h) 3-D spheric and conic sections,

2618

In other cases if the integration cannot be done directly, or it is too time con-

suming todo the direct integration, numerical integration schemes can be used.
For example, Simpsons method will give quite accurate results with limited cal-
culations, if the mold shape can be represented by smooth curves.

SOLUTIONS WITH OTHER INLET BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

The previous discussions are for the pressure inlet condition only. The other
most commonly used inlet condition is the constant inlet flow rate, which is true
if the resin viscosity is low, or if the fiber content is relatively low. In this case
we can directly use the continuity condition and the information about the mold

shape. In other words, if we neglect any loss in the filling flow, the total amount
of the fluid injected from the inlet must be equal to the total unfilled volume of
the mold. The mathematical expression of this condition is

where tk is the time when the kth section is filled, and F; (x) is the mold shape
function as defined before.
It is also possible that at the start of the filling process, the inlet condition is a
constant flow rate. With the pressure buildup at the inlet, at a certain time the in-
let boundary condition changes to a constant pressure. We assume the initial con-
stant flow rate is qo and the pressure limit ispo. The transition takes place at time
t, when the flow front reaches position x,. The pressure buildup at the inlet during
the constant flow rate period is

We assume that the transition takes place after we finish filling the kth section.
Therefore we set xk = x, to solve for .r~ . This probably needs a few numerical
iterations. The transition time t, can also be solved. After that the inlet condition
becomes a constant pressure po . Previous derived results can be used, but the
starting point is x = xk and t = tk . The actual transition position could fall into
 2619

any section. We can always split that section into two sections (the kth and the
k + Ith) to use the formulas.
Mold filling with a transition of the inlet boundary condition makes the calcu-
lation more complicated. Usually if the transition time or position is short com-
pared with the total estimated filling time or filling length respectively, the
pressure boundary condition can be used instead. The results of the filling time
will be underestimated. If the transition takes place very late, or in other words
if the transition time or the position is close to the total filling time or the total
length, the constant inlet flow rate condition can be used. This will also under-
estimate the total filling time.

POWER-LAW FLUID
For many polymer melts, the observation of their flow behavior suggests that
they follow the power law [14,15]. Their behavior can be expressed as

q =
m~&dquo;-1 (34)

where q is the viscosity function, ) is the shear rate, m is a constant with units
of N.s&dquo;/m2, and n is another dimensionless constant. Both m and n are related
to a certain polymer solution and can be determined experimentally.
For this kind of power-law fluid, Darcys law takes the form of [16]

1 ... -.i

where h is a parameter that depends on the power-law exponent n, and with

units of /7!<~&dquo;. As discussed in Reference [15], one of the drawbacks of using
constants /1l and 11 is the difficulty to construct a &dquo;time constant.&dquo; For expression
(35), if 11 =
1, we have the same form for Newtonian fluid with m = [L and
- K.
With a very similar approach, we can solve for the wet length as a function of
time. By using the same continuity conditions, we have

We still consider the pressure boundary condition here. By using the same flow
frontmoving condition and integrating, we have
2620

Figure 5. Wet length versus time for power-law fluid.

In this case the integration must be performed numerically for most mold sec-
tions. One exception is the I-D straight channel, in which F(x) 1. If we =

assume at time t = to = 0, x = Xo = 0, the relation of wet length versus time is

This is plotted in Figure 5 with different values for n. Here we choose the val-
ues of (pa/m) to be 1.0 x 101 (sl), and values of k to be 1.0 x 10-9 [m&dquo;+&dquo;^ ]
and 1.0 x 10- [m(1+lIn)] ] for comparison. In Figure 5 different symbols are used
to distinguish different curves. As we can see from the figure, the parameter n has
a direct effect on the filling flow.
Similar analysis can also be used for multiple mold sections. For each filled
section, the pressure drop across the section is
 2621

The continuity condition is still the same. By using these relations, we can ob-
tain the relation between the inlet pressure po and the flow rate q, at the interface
of the k - Ith and the k th section as

where the function Hk (.~) is

By using the moving flow front condition, we can solve for the filling time of
the k th section as

The integration can be done by numerical schemes.

If a constant flow rate is observed at the inlet, the results obtained in the previ-
ous section for Newtonian fluids can be applied here. If the inlet boundary condi-
tion changes at a certain point from the constant flow rate to the constant pres-
sure, we can use the same approach to calculate the transition position and time.
From the relation of inlet pressure po and the flow rate go, we have

By setting xk x&dquo; we
= can solve for the position where the transition takes
place. The transition time t, can be solved by using the previous solution of the
2622

constant flow rate inlet condition for the Newtonian fluid. We set the kth mold
section to be the last section before the transition. Then we can use the above
solutions of the pressure inlet condition starting from the k + Ith section.
As we already discussed in the previous section, if the transition time is small
compared with the total filling time, the constant pressure inlet condition can be
used. On the other hand, if the transition time is close to the total filling time, the
constant flow rate inlet condition can be used. These approximations will intro-
duce more errors but will save calculation time, since no iteration is needed to
find the transition position and time.
_

OTHER APPROXIMATION FOR NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID

As we have shown in the previous section, the solution of the power-law fluid
requires much more calculation. Because we cannot extract a time constant from
the expressions, the parameter study becomes very difficult. One approach to this
problem is to use Darcys law of the Newtonian fluid, but add some revision in
the expression. As suggested in Reference [15], the form of modified Darcys law
can be written as

where K is the same as in the expression for Newtonian fluids, but 17 is an effec-
tive viscosity which takes into account the non-Newtonian fluid behavior. This
can be expressed as

where terms 110 T&dquo;z, and a are from the Ellis model for non-Newtonian fluid,
which is written as

where 77,, is the zero-shear-rate viscosity, T&dquo;z is the value of the shear stress at
which =
r~ol2, a - 1 is the slope of (,~olr~) - 1 versus TlT&dquo;~ on log-log plot
paper. For a specific fluid, these three constants ro, T&dquo;z, and a are known values
from measurements. A time constant rolTt/2 can be constructed for analyzing the
fluid behavior in Ellis model. This makes the parameter study much easier. The
other term -r., in Equation (45) is the wall shear stress. This is obtained from the
axial flow through a tube. For a cross section with mean hydraulic radius Rio, we
have
 2623

where Ap refers the pressure drop, and L is the length of the tube. For a well-
to
developed flow, be treated as a constant in space. However, in the filling
Tw can
flow case, Tw is a function of the wet length if the inlet pressure is fixed. An ap-
proximation is to use the average value of T~, , which can be obtained from experi-
ments, and treat it as a constant. In this case the effective viscosity of the fluid is
also a constant. Therefore the calculation reduces to the case of the Newtonian
fluid. This will introduce some error but can greatly simplify the calculation.

PROGRAMMING OF THE SIMULATION PROCESS

The key point in this approximation is to divide the mold into a series of mold
sections and to fill them one by one. Apparently this is also the limitation of this
approach. For a tree-like structure, this approach can still be used with a change
in the continuity condition at the branching position.
In using this simplified modeling technique, we also need to consider the tran-
sition areas between these simplified mold sections. One way to approach this is
to establish some criteria to check if the first section is filled before the calcula-
tion goes to the second section. The criterion could be the filling volume, or the
wet length. However, this needs some iteration loops in the calculation. To
reduce the amount of the calculation, which is the main advantage of this ap-
proach, our preference is to let the user do the approximation instead of leaving
this job to the program. Therefore, we assume the user of this program will first
separate the mold into a few sections according to the resin flow knowledge and
experimental observations, and then perform the calculation.
As we have shown in the example in the Introduction Section, the filling pro-
cess of a mold can be divided into several stages. However, how to figure out a
reasonable way to do it requires some knowledge of the filling process. This is
probably not difficult to process engineers based on their observations. As for the
example shown in Figure I, one way is to assume having three stages. The first
stage is the outward flow in a semi-circle pattern until the corners are reached.
Then we can assume the semi-circle flow front proceeds to the other end. Finally
the two corners are filled. Of course we can see the deviation from the assumed
semi-circle flow front, so that we do introduce errors in the modeling process. If
more detailed study is needed, other more sophisticated mold filling programs
are available as summarized in the introduction.
As we reviewed in the introduction section, most of the studies in this field are
limited to the Newtonian fluid. In most cases this is a reasonable assumption. As
the calculation process involves, the Newtonian fluid approach is much more
simpler. Also it is possible to assume that both the permeability of the preform
and the viscosity of the resin are constant throughout the process. With all these
assumptions, the calculation can be greatly simplified.
As we discussed in the previous sections, the inlet boundary condition can be
either a constant flow rate or a constant pressure at different stages. Usually the
process will start with a constant inlet flow rate. With the pressure buildup at the
inlet, the process may or may not change to a constant inlet pressure condition.
In the program, we check this pressure buildup after each section is filled. In
2624

other words, for each section we check the pressure buildup assuming we have
the constant flow rate condition. If the pressure buildup is less than the setup
pressure, the constant flow rate at the inlet is preserved. Otherwise, we assume
to have a constant inlet pressure condition. This will introduce extra errors in the
calculation, but the error can be reduced if the mold sections are set properly.
Now we introduce some terms used in this programming:

where S, and Sz are constants, and E; , G; , R; , and W; are constants related to the
i th section. In the cases of 2-D circular section, 3-D circular section with varying
thickness, and 3-D spheric and conic sections, if the flow is from the large side
to the smaller side, the flow direction is opposite to the radial position vector A.
Therefore a minus sign is assigned in the expressions of G, and R, . The coor-
dinate vectors is a local coordinate system related to each section. Usually vf is
larger than xo . In three special cases mentioned above, x,, is larger than vf because
of the definition. Therefore this sign correction is necessary.
Now we introduce ti as the time required for filling the i th section. We also use
two other sets of the constants c, and di as
 2625

With all these terms defined, we can present the programming procedures in
Table 1. Programming is done by using the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software.
We have provided eight simplified mold sections in the previous discussion. At
the current stage, we assume the mold can be represented by these limited num-
bers of simplified sections, although in most cases approximations are needed.
In the simulation, the input variables are the permeability of the preform, the
viscosity of the resin, and the inlet boundary conditions including the flow rate
and the pressure limit. The output of the program is the filling time for each sec-
tion and the total filling time. The calculation takes just a fraction of a second on
a microcomputer.
EXAMPLE OF MOLD FILLING SIMULATION
To verify this simplified mold filling simulation result, an example presented in
Reference [3] is used. This is an irregular mold section as shown in Figure 6.
With TGMOLD, the flow front movement and the pressure distribution can be

Table 1. Programming procedures of mold filling simulation.

2626

Figure 6. Example of simplified mold filling simulation.

traced. Resin free regions at some &dquo;bad&dquo; corners can also be found. With this
simplified calculation, these features are no longer available. However, it is still
possible to get an estimation of some basic process parameters, such as the filling
time, the pressure buildup at the inlet, etc. Also with TGMOLD, preforms with
different permeabilities in different directions can be simulated. This is not possi-
ble in the simplified I-D simulation.
The overall size of this mold is 0.1 m by 0.25 m (3.94 in by 9.84 in), with irreg-
ular shapes at three corners and at the middle section. For the isotropic preform
case, the permeability is chosen as 9.87 x 10-&dquo; m2 (100 darcy or 1.53 x 10-
in2), and the resin viscosity is chosen as 9.44 Pa.s (9,440 cps or 94.4 poise).
 2627

The inlet condition is the prescribed superficial flow rate, which is 0.001 m/s
(0.0394 in/s). Line inlet is assumed at the left side of the mold in the simulation.
The outlet is placed at the upper-right corner. The result of the filling time from
TGMOLD simulation is 320 seconds.
In the simplified mold filling simulation, the mold section is divided into a few
sections, each one with a simplified shape. In this example, we choose five sec-
tions as shown in Figure 6. These sections match very roughly to the original
mold sections. The calculations are done with these simplified mold sections.
The geometry dimensions of these five sections are listed in Figure 6.
The simplified simulation shows that the filling time is 340 seconds, which is
about 6 percent off from the TGMOLD result. The simplified simulation starts
from the very left side, while in the TGMOLD simulation, one has to assume the
initial flow front, so that it does not start from the left side of the mold, as shown
in Figure 6. This contributes some difference to the results.
From the simplified simulation, it was found that with the constant inlet flow
condition, the pressure buildup is over 1.72 x 10 Pa (or 2500 psi). The simula-
tion with TGMOLD also showed this tremendous pressure buildup at the inlet.
After 200 seconds of the filling, the pressure buildup was 1.26 x 107 Pa (or over
1800 psi). Therefore, the simplified simulation does give out a good estimation
of these important process variables.
In practical this pressure limitation must be considered. With the given resin
material and preform properties and under the practical process setup, it is possi-
ble that the pressure inlet condition is valid for most of the filling time. That will
change the filling process dramatically. With the simplified simulation program,
we can easily change this condition. Two pressure inlet conditions are per-

formed, 1.38 x 106 Pa (200 psi) and 2.76 x 106 Pa (400 psi), and the results of
the filling times are about 35 minutes and 18 minutes respectively. These two
prescribed pressurc values are not even high enough to maintain a constant flow
rate for filling the first simplified section. This also shows the difficulty of the
mold filling if low preform permeability and high fluid viscosity are involved.
In Reference [3] preforms with anisotropic permeability are also studied. The
same mold section is used for two other preforms. The permeability ratios,

K,,lKX, are 3 and 10 respectively, where x is the main filling direction. The results
of the filling time remain unchanged since this filling is mainly in the .v direction
and Kx is unchanged. Therefore, it is also possible to use this simplified simula-
tion to get an estimation of the filling time as long as the filling direction can be
determined. However, this is not generally true. As discussed in Reference [3],
if the filling involves different flow directions simultaneously, 2-D simulation
programs, such as TGMOLD, must be used.

SUMMARY
A simplified mold filling simulation is developed to estimate the process vari-
ables for resin transfer molding (RTM) of structural composite parts. Resin flow
in the filling process is considered to follow Darcys law, which describes the
fluid flow through porous media. Both Newtonian fluid and power-law fluid are
2628

studied. The filling process is considered as a series of filling of separate mold

sections. Therefore a mold is decomposed into many sections with simple geom-
etries, such as rectangular, ring section, trapezoid, spheric or conic sections, etc.
With the I-D flow simplification, closed form solutions are derived for each of
these simplified shapes. These sections are then assembled, and the total filling
time can be estimated. Other important process variables, such as the required
inlet pressure or flow rate, can also be calculated.
Compared with more sophisticated simulation programs, such as TGMOLD,
this simplified approach uses very limited calculations and needs only microcom-
puter facilities. Since the numerical calculations are reduced to only algebraic
operations of closed form solutions, the computation process is very fast. The
user interface effort is also reduced. The selected example shows that the results
are within the reasonable range when compared with the TGMOLD outputs.
This simplified simulation can be used as a supplemental tool for the design and
control of RTM processes.

NOMENCLATURE
a = mold shape factor ..

A = cross section area of a mold section (mz)

A, (i =
I,? , ... , j ) = cross section area of the kth mold section inlet side (m2)
Ao = cross section area of a mold section inlet side (mz)
Ao =cross section area of a mold section inlet side (m2)
b =mold shape factor
c,(k =
1,2,... , j ) = intermediate variable (m)
C~ (k =
1,2,...,j ) = intermediate variable (m)

d~ mold height at the outlet side (m)

=

dk (k =
1,2,...,j) = intermediate variable (m)
d~ = mold height at the inlet side (m)
Ek (k =
1,2, ... , j ) = intermediate variable
Gk (k =
1,2,...,j ) intermediate variable (m)
=

= mold width at the outlet side

h (m)
ho = mold width at the inlet side (m)
k constant for power-law fluid permeability [ml&dquo;1&dquo;1]
=

K permeability (m2)
=

Kk (k = 1,2,...,j ) permeability of kth section (m2)

=

m constant in viscosity formula (N.s&dquo;/m2)

=

n constant in viscosity formula

=

p resin (gage) pressure (N/m2)

=

pk (k = 1,2,..., j ) = resin (gage) pressure at the kth section inlet side (N/m2)
p~ = resin (gage) pressure at the inlet (N/m2)
q superficial resin flow rate (m/s)
=

q, (k =
1,2,...,j ) superficial resin flow rate at the kth section inlet side
=

(m/s)
go =
superficialresin flow rate at the inlet (m/s)
Rk (k =
1,2,...,j ) = intermediate variable (m)
 2629

S, = intermediate variable (s/m2)

S, = intermediate variable (N/m) .

t = time (s)
t~ = filling time (s)
tk (k =
1,2,...,j ) =
filling time of the kth section (s)
to = start time (s)
t~ = time at which the inlet condition transition takes
place (s)
rvk (k =
1,2,...,j ) = intermediate variable (mz)

length (m)

_r = wet
-

_r~ = outlet position of the mold (m)

xk (k =
1,2,...,j ) = inlet position of the kth section (m)
_xo = inlet position of the molo (m)
x, = wet length at the transition time t, (m)
-y = shear rate ( 1/s) -

/
~ = viscosity function (N.s/m2)
..
q = effective viscosity (N~s/mz)
Tk. = wall shear stress (/M2)

inlet subscript: o
outlet subscript: f ,

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author gratefully acknowledges the technical support from Duncan Lawrie
and Alexander Berdichevsky of Lord Corporation. The author would also like to
thank Prof. S. Guqerl of the University of Delaware and J. Coulter of Lehigh
University for providing support of using TGMOLD programs.

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