Numerical Simulation of Curing Deformation of Thermosetting Resin Matrix Composite Curved Structure

Abstract

The evolutions of physical properties of composites during the curing process of the carbon fibre reinforced resin composite, such as density, modulus, coefficient of thermal expansion, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity, were analyzed and those evolutions were introduced into the numerical simulation. The new approach to construct the curvilinear coordinate system by streamline equation of steady flow was proposed with the complex curved structure composite as the study object. By using the finite-element method and building the curvilinear coordinate system, the distribution of internal temperature, degree of cure, internal stresses and evolutions of physical properties during the curing process of the composite skin plate of a light aircraft wing were calculated. The deformation of the skin plate caused by the uneven distributions of temperature field and cure degree field, anisotropic thermal expansion coefficients and volumetric shrinkage of resin were calculated in the same model. From the numerical simulation results, it can be concluded that the curing process will be more reasonable and more accurate when the evolutions of physical properties of composites are adopted and the curvilinear coordinate system constructed by streamline equation of steady flow is fully applicable to finite element analysis of composite curved structure.