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Non Isothermal Mold Filling and Curing Simulation For Resin Transfer Molding
Non Isothermal Mold Filling and Curing Simulation For Resin Transfer Molding
Abstract: A num er ical model of 2. 5D no n-isot her mal resin transfer molding simulation is dev el-
oped for thin part based on the contr ol volume/ finite elem ent method. T he non-unifor m temperature
distr ibution and the heat gener ation during the filling stag e ar e modeled w ith the lumped temperature
sy stem and the species balance. N umer ical algo rithm of the simulation are studied. T he molding sim-
ulat ion for a part is per formed to show the ef fectiv eness of simulating filling time, temperature distr i-
bution and curing degr ee.
Key words: r esin t ransfer molding ; finite-element analy sis; mathematical model; numerical simula-
tion
树脂传递 成型工艺中树脂流动 和凝固过 程的非等温 仿真. 陈仁良, 桂冰, 李明成, 梁志勇. 中国航
空学报( 英文版) , 2003, 16( 4) : 247- 252.
摘 要: 采用 控制体/ 有 限元方法 建立了模拟 树脂传递 成型工艺制 造薄壁零 件时树脂流 动和凝固
过程的2. 5维 非等温仿真数学模型, 该模型运用纤维 、
树脂的能 量平衡和树脂凝固 的质量平衡方程
模拟树脂流动和凝固过程中的 热量传递和温度变化 过程, 研究 了树脂传递成型工 艺过程中树脂流
动、温度变化及 树脂凝固的 数值求解 方法, 算 例结果表 明所提出的 仿真模型 能有效地模 拟树脂传
递成型工艺过程中树脂流动、温度变化及树脂凝固程度。
关键词: 树脂传递成型; 有限元分析; 数学模型; 数值仿真
文章编号: 1000-9361( 2003) 04-0247-06 中图分类号: V 211. 3 文献标识码: A
Resin T ransf er M olding ( RT M ) has becom e T he rate of t he react ion is dependent on t he t em-
an at tract ive method in w hich liquid react ant cures perature and ext ent of resin conversion. Heat gen-
in a mold with fabric reinforcement t o produce a eration and t ransfer can result in a non-unif orm
composite part . Int erest in t hese technologies has t emperat ure distribution in t he m old .
grow n dram at ically , spurred by the milit ary 's need Ow ing to the int eraction of diff erent variables
for af fordabilit y and high performance and t he auto and t he complexity of the process, m old and pro-
industry' s em phasis on hig her product iv it y and cess desig n are current ly conducted using t rial and
low er-v olum e m arket niches. error. Experiment al met hods f or opt imization of
T here are so many technical issues concerned mold and process desig n may be t oo t ime consum-
[ 1-3]
w it h RT M processes . Because of t he anisot rop- ing and economically prohibit ive. A compute nu-
ic nat ure of t he reinforcement fibers, the flow pat- merical simulation m odel capable of predicting resin
tern in the mold can be very complicat ed. Cure of flow behavior, pressure gradient inside the mold,
resins ut ilizes heat to cause a crosslinking react ion . and curing process is needed t o opt imize injection
port posit ions, inject ion pressure, f illing t ime, pared wit h the dominant v iscous force.
temperat ure , and curing degree. Under these assumptions, Darcy' s law for
A num ber of studies have developed non- flow t hrough porous media can be used as the mo-
isot hermal f low m odels w it h a heat t ransfer mod- mentum equation.
[ 4-9]
el . T hese models are coupled by t he fluid vis- K
v= - P ( 1)
cosit y , which is the f unct ion of both t em perature
and cure conversion . How ever , most of t hem are w here v is t he velocit y vect or, P is the pressure
concentrated on t w o-dim ensional by sim plify ing gradient , is the viscosit y, and K is the perme-
the heat transfer form . In t he act ual case, t he abilit y t ensor . F or the part w it h small t hickness,
therm al ef fect s are three -dim ensional and require t he f low can be m odeled as t wo-dimensional flow
three-dimensional analysis. T here are some studies P
vx 1 K xx Kxy x
on t he non-isot hermal RT M mold f illing and cur- = - ( 2)
vy K yx K yy P
ing processing w ith true three -dimensional analy- y
[ 10-13]
sis . Unfortunately , the huge comput at ion w here v x , v y are t he flow v elocit y component s and
time limits its applicat ion . Moreover , t hree-dimen- K ij ( i, j = x , y ) is the component of t he perme-
sional model makes t he numerical algorithm more abilit y t ensor def ined in t he tw o -dimensional Cart e-
complicat ed. sian coordinate syst em .
In order t o improve the t w o -dim ensional mod- For an incompressible f luid, the continuit y e-
el and avoid t he huge com put at ion time and numer- quation is
ical algorit hm dif ficult y in the t hree-dimensional vx vy
model, a 2. 5D simulat ion RT M non-isot hermal x + y = 0 ( 3)
model is proposed for thin part in this paper . T he Eq. ( 2) and ( 3) are combined and int egrated
meaning of 2. 5D is t hat the flow is 2D w hile t he over a cont rol volume to have
heat transf er is 3D. In t his 2. 5D model, the f low P
is determined by Darcy' s law and t he heat transf er 1 Kxx K xy x
[ nx ny ] ds = 0 ( 4)
and resin reaction are developed based on t he S Kyx K yy P
y
lumped t em perature syst em ( i. e. local thermal e-
w here nx , ny are t he components of the vector nor-
quilibrium bet ween resin and f iber ) . T he cont rol
mal to the surface of t he int egrated volume.
volume / finite elem ent met hod ( CV / FEM ) is used
In RT M process, if the t emperat ure is as-
to solve t he dist ribut ions of pressure, t em perature
sumed t o be in local equilibrium at any specific t im e
and curing degree during the RT M processing .
due t o its slow filling speed ( i. e. , the t em perature
1 Simulation Scheme is t he same f or both resin fluid and f iber mat at
each local posit ion ) , the equat ions of energ y and
1. 1 Governing equations
species balance can be ex pressed as
In order t o simulat e t he mold f illing process of
T
+ r Cpr - !H m ( 5)
2
RT M , several assum pt ions must be made to sim- Cp v T = k T +
t
plif y the problem. In g eneral, t he fiber reinf orce- ∀ -
v
+ ∀= m ( 6)
ment in the mold cavit y is assumed t o be rigid dur- t
ing t he molding process. T here is no ex change of w here T is the t emperat ure, ∀is the resin conver-
mass bet w een the solid and t he fluid. T he f luid is sion , m is the m ass generat ion rat e, is the f iber
considered as incom pressible and it s viscosit y is in- mat porosit y and !H is the volumet ric heat gener-
dependent of shear rate ( i. e. , t he f luid is New to- at ion per unit volume. T he lumped thermal param-
nian ) . Inert ia ef fect is neglect ed because of t he low et ers are defined as
resin flow . Surface tension is neglig ible as com- = ( f r) / ( f w r + r wf)
Non-isot hermal M old Filling and Curing S imulat ion
N ovember 2003 ・ 249・
for Resin T ransf er M olding
D / ,
In t he CV FEM t he ent ire calculat ion do-
( F ∀) = Fm
Dt main is f irst divided int o a num ber of element s.
w here F is t he resin volume fraction of a con- T he cont rol volum e is f orm ed based on t he nodes
trol volume. of t he adjacent element s. Each element is divided
At t he inlet gat e int o several sub-areas by t he lines connecting t he
( a ) F or t he constant pressure m old filling cent roid of t he element t o t he midpoint / cent er of
P = P 0 , T = T res in , and ∀= 0 each side/ surface. A control volume is composed of
( b ) F or the constant f low rat e mold f illing several sub-area / volumes , w hich have a comm on
P node at the cent er of the control volume . Fig . 1 is
1 x K xx K x y x
[ n ny ] ds = - Q t he t ypical cont rol volume distribut ion.
S K yx K yy P
y
T = T resin, ∀= 0
At mold boundaries
P ( a) T riangle
n = 0, T = T
wall ( b ) T riangle and quar drang le
Fig . 1 T ypical control volume distr ibutio n
w here Q is t he volume inject ing rat e at t he inlet
For 2. 5 D non-isotherm al case, the heat
gate, T f0 is t he initial fiber t emperat ure t hat is t he
t ransfer must be solv ed in t hree dimensions. T hus
sam e as t he mold w all t emperature T w all and T r esin is
t he cavity should be discretised t hroug h t he t hick-
the init ial resin temperat ure. At the flow f ront ,
ness, w hich involves sub-dividing each cont rol vol-
the param et er F represent s t he st at us of each con-
ume defined for t he flow analysis int o a number of
trol volume in the flow domain. F is zero for an
layers. T he energy balance is t hen carried out
em pty control v olum e, w hile it is 1 for an entirely
w it hin each of these sub-domains. T he lay ers
filled cont rol volum e. F or a part ially f illed cont rol
t hroug h the t hickness can be div ided w ith collocat e
volume, F is equal to the volume fraction occupied [ 14]
method .
by the resin. Pressure is assumed vanished at t he
Fig . 2 shows the diagram of comput ation
flow f ront w here t he t em perature and conversion
schemes f or 2. 5D non-isothermal RT M simulation
follow t he energy and m ass balance of a cont rol
based on CV/ FEM . At the beg inning of mold fill-
mass. F or t he case of specified inject ing f low rate,
ing, the sim ulat ion program assumes that the con-
a specified f low rat e is assigned to the control vol-
・ 250・ CHEN R en-lian g , G U I Bing , LI M ing -cheng , LIA N G Zh i-yong CJA
problem com es f rom the convect ion t erms in equa- Cavit y t hickness/ mm 3
tions ( 5) and ( 6) . In order to reduce the diver- Resin inlet temperat ure/ K 310
In it ial perf orm t emperat ure/ K 350
gence, t he convect ion t erms of t he tw o equations
M old surf ace t emperat ure/ K 370
are evaluated using the upw ind scheme . T he up-
wind scheme adds a num erical diff usion t erm t o t he T he react ion rat e is
syst em and reduces t he inst abilit y. How ever, it in- f ( ∀, T ) = 300ex p - 3277 ( 1 - ∀) 2
T
creases t he truncat ion errors. T he t runcat ion er-
T he relat ionship among resin viscosity , t em-
rors may result in a m eaningless solution even
perature and deg ree of conversion used is
thoug h the scheme is stable. T hey are sensit ive to 4
the f low velocit y, mesh size and time step if t he = 2. 56 × 10- 21 exp 1. 45 × 10
T
flow is convection dom inant. A sub -t im e st ep is
Non-isot hermal M old Filling and Curing S imulat ion
N ovember 2003 ・ 251・
for Resin T ransf er M olding
sult, the tem perature show s a gradual increase as resin t ransf er molding process by t he finit e element met hod
[ J] . A dvances in Polymer T echn ology J, 1993, 12( 4) : 329
the f illing t ime increases in t he w hole f illing do- - 342.
main. [ 7] Bruschke M V , A dvani S G . A numerical approach to mod-
Fig. 5( b) and 6( b) are the temperat ure and el n on-isot hermal viscous f low t hrough f ibrous media w it h
free surface [ J] . Internat ional Journal N umerical met hods in
conversion f ield at the sam e layer made by ref er- Fluids J, 1994, 19( 7) : 575- 603.
ence [ 9] . T here is a good agreement bet w een [ 8] Lee L J, Young W B, Lin R J. M olding filling an d cure
them . T he diff erence bet w een them also com es modeling of R TM and S RIM processes [ J ] . Composit e
St ruct ure J, 1994, 27( 2) : 109- 120.
from t he ef fect of in-plane heat conduct ion.
[ 9] Rudd C D , L ong A C, K endall K N , et al. Liquid mould-
ing t echnologies [ M ] . Cambridge E ngland: W oodhead Pub-
3 Conclusion
lis hing Limit ed, 1997. 286- 288.
[ 10] Y oung W B. Three-dimensional non-isothermal mold filling
A 2. 5 D non-isot hermal RT M simulat ion
simulat ions in resin t ransf er molding [ J] . Polymer Compos-
model is developed f or the thin part based on t he ites J , 1994, 15( 2) : 118- 127.
CV / FEM . T he lumped temperat ure system and [ 11] Chan A W, M organ R J. Computer modeling of liquid com-
the species balance are used in m odeling t he non-u- posit e molding f or 3-dimension al complex shaped st ruct ures
[ A ] . In: Proceedings of 19th A S M / ESD A dvanced Com-
niform t em perature dist ribution and the heat gen- posit es Conference [ C ] . Dearborn , 1994. 341- 345.
eration during filling st age . T he converg ence and [ 12] K ang M K , Lee W I. A f low f ront refinement t echn ique for
accuracy of numerical schemes are st udied and sim- t he numerical simulation of t he resin t ransf er molding pro-
cess [ J] . Composit es S cience and T ech nology J, 1999, 59
ulat ion f or a part is performed. Compared w it h 2D ( 11) : 1663- 1674.
model, 2. 5D model do aff ect the f low patt ern , fill- [ 13] Lim S T , Lee W I. A n analysis of t he t hree-dim ensional
ing t ime , dist ributions of temperat ure and cure resin t ransf er M old f illing process [ J] . Composites Scien ce
and Technology J, 2000, 60( 7) : 961- 975.
conversion in RT M process.
[ 14] Dunn D . A chebyshev diff erentiation met hod [ J] . Comput er
T o v erif y the process model, ex periment al Physics Communicat ions J, 1996, 96( 1) : 10- 16.
w ork is needed. Result s from t he ex periment al Biographies:
study and the comparison w ith t he num erical simu- CHEN Ren -liang Bor n in 1963, he received B . S . , M . S .
lation are t he f ut ure st udy in t his area. and P h . D . in aircraft desig n from Nanjing A eronautical
Institute in 1985, 1988 and 1998. Fro m 2000 to 2002, he
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