Die-Attached Versus Die-Detached Resin Injection Chamber for Pultrusion

Abstract

Resin injection pultrusion is an efficient and highly automated continuous process for high-quality, low-cost, high-volume manufacturing of composites. The main objective of this study is to explore the “attached-die configuration” and “detached-die configuration” for improving the resin injection pultrusion process. In this work the impact of pull speed on complete wet out of the reinforced fiber is investigated for attached-die and detached-die resin injection pultrusion with various chamber length considerations. A 3-D finite volume technique was applied to simulate the liquid resin flow through the fiber reinforcement in the injection pultrusion process. This work explores the resin injection pressure needed to achieve complete wet out and the corresponding maximum pressure inside the resin injection chamber so as to improve injection chamber design to keep the pressure within the injection chamber within reasonable constraints for different pull speeds.