![Sample our Physical Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110819/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Physical-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) is a manufacturing process for fiber reinforced polymer composites where dry fibers are placed inside a mold and resin is injected under pressure. During mold design, filling simulations can study different manufacturing concepts (i.e. placement of injection gates and vents) to guarantee complete filling of the part and avoid air entrapment where flow fronts converge. In this work, a novel software tool LCMsim, which was implemented by the authors, is benchmarked against other tools and real-world flow experiments. Its development was driven by two ideas: Easy-of-use for the mold engineer and maximum flexibility for the researcher. Two experiments were used for validation. In the first, zones with different preform properties were present and in the second, race-tracking was enforced. Flow fronts from LCMsim and experiment agree with 7% error and simulated flow fronts from LCMsim and the commercially available software PAM-RTM agree with 3% error.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Oliver Rausch-Schott for running the flow experiments on the optical permeameter test rig at Montanuniversität Leoben.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The novel software tool LCMsim is openly available on GitHub at https://github.com/obertscheiderfhwn/lcmsim. Installation instructions and instructions on how to run a simulation are given in a README file on the repository. The input files input_case4a.txt and input_case4b.txt can be used to derive the data presented in the two test cases.
Notes
1 In this paper, mathematical symbols and units are noted according to the ISO 80000 standard.
2 If race-tracking is present it is included in the simulation with a small zone with increased permeability and porosity. Typically, the permeability in the race tracking zone is set one or two orders of magnitude higher than the permeability in the main preform and the porosity is close to 1.