Abstract
Resin infusion is a pressure-gradient-driven composite manufacturing process in which the liquid resin is driven to flow through and fill in the void space of a porous composite preform prior to the heat treatment for resin solidification. It usually is a great challenge to design both the infusion system and the infusion process meeting the manufacturing requirements, especially for large-scale components of aircraft and wind turbine blades. Aiming at addressing the key concerns about flow fronts and air bubble entrapment, the present study proposes a modelling framework of the multiphase flow of resin and air in a dual scale porous medium, i.e. a composite preform. A finite strain formulation is discussed for the fluid–solid interaction during an infusion process. The present study bridges the gap between the microscopic observation and the macroscopic modelling by using the averaging method and first principle method, which sheds new light on the high-fidelity finite element modelling.
Highlights
In recent years vacuum assisted resin infusion (RI or VARI) becomes an important method for manufacturing the large-scale composite components of structures like airplane wing covers and wind turbine blades [1,2]
In the circumstance that the air phase is taken into account, mathematical modelling has shown explicitly that Darcy’s law may not cover some key features observed in the dual scale multiphase resin infusion system
In order to address the challenge, the present study proposes a framework of finite strain dual scale fibre-reinforced model explicitly taking into account the multiphase flow of the resin and air
Summary
In recent years vacuum assisted resin infusion (RI or VARI) becomes an important method for manufacturing the large-scale composite components of structures like airplane wing covers and wind turbine blades [1,2]. A resin infusion process mainly includes two steps, (1) liquid resin infusion through a dry composite preform and (2) curing (i.e. heat treatment) to transfer the liquid resin into a solid matrix for holding fibres together. From the point of view of mathematical modelling, the former may be considered as a fluid transport process inside a porous medium consisting of a fibre network, the latter is a chemo-thermo-mechanically coupled process with phase changes and the creation of residual stress. The present study is restricted to the step 1, liquid resin infusion process.
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