Rapid prototyping of composite parts using resin transfer molding and laminated object manufacturing

Abstract

An expensive and time consuming aspect of a product development cycle is manufacturing the prototype of the design concept. The goal of current research is to devise a methodology for the rapid process development of resin transfer molding (RTM) in order to reduce product development cycle time and lower the cost of developing composite parts. As a first step towards this goal the feasibility of an alternative rapid prototyping technique, namely laminated object manufacturing (LOM), to fabricate molds has been investigated. The durability and dimensional stability of such a mold, as well as its economic practicality in the RTM manufacturing of a composite I-beam were considered. To keep tooling and fixturing simple, vacuum pressure was used to draw resin into the mold. However, injection at this low pressure proved difficult. To remedy the situation a high permeability layer (HPL) was incorporated into the process. The benefits and drawbacks of utilizing such a layer are also discussed in the paper. Furthermore, an RTM simulation program developed at UCLA was employed to determine optimum gate locations. Finally, the total hours to manufacture the first acceptable part were quantified for comparison with future studies.