Journal of Materials Science and Engineering with Advanced TechnologyAuthor's: André C. Garay, Matheus Franz, Jeferson A. Souza and Sandro C. Amico
Pages: [49] - [67]
Received Date: May 31, 2015
Submitted by:
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18642/jmseat_7100121505
Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) and its variant, Light resin transfer molding (LRTM) are liquid composite processes largely used in manufacturing pieces with high mechanical properties and good finishing in both sides. In these processes, a polymeric resin is injected into a mold cavity previously filled with a reinforced media. Besides the reinforced media, and when light pieces are necessary, an impermeable material is placed at the core section of the assemble. The final sandwich piece is a composite compound by a polymeric matrix, a fibrous reinforced media and a light non permeable core. Good mechanical properties associated with a low density composite are the desired characteristics of this structure. In this work, numerical modelling of the resin advance through the porous reinforced media has been used to predict filling time and void formation in a sandwich composite piece. The pieces are manufactured with the LRTM process on which a lateral empty (without reinforcement) border is used to injected the resin. In the LRTM process, the computational domain is divided in two regions: A porous (with reinforcement) and the empty channel. The volume of fluid (VOF) method was used to solve the fluid mechanical problem in both domains. Results has shown that the proposed methodology is capable of predict flow advance inside the mold, however solution is highly dependent on the physical properties of the reinforcement, mainly the permeability. Case studies are presented for different operating conditions.
RTM, numerical model, sandwich composite.
