Abstract
The success of an autoclave process is related to the temperature characteristics of the mold. An inhomogeneous temperature field in the mold affects the quality of composite parts, which may lead to residual stress, voids, and other manufacturing defects of composite parts. In order to meet high-quality production demands, the temperature field in a mold should be investigated precisely. The temperature distribution in a large frame mold is critically evaluated in this work. Then, a method to control the temperature distribution in a large frame mold is proposed. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the autoclave process is developed to predict the temperature evolution of the large frame mold. The model is validated by experimental results, which shows good agreement with a relative difference of 5.92%. The validated CFD model is then applied to analyze the temperature distribution characters in the mold with different control conditions. The results show that the temperature difference decreases by 13.3% when the mold placement angle is changed from 180 to 168°.
Highlights
The autoclave molding technology is widely used in the aircraft and space industry to produce high-performance composite parts [1,2]
With the optimized placement angle of the mold, the air was injected at a certain angle onto the mold surface
The high-temperature area was located on the side of the air inlet
Summary
The autoclave molding technology is widely used in the aircraft and space industry to produce high-performance composite parts [1,2]. Mechanical properties of composite materials mainly depend on their curing temperature and pressure in the autoclave [3,4,5]. Thermosetting composites generally undergo three stages in the curing process with the increase in curing temperature, namely, liquid stage, rubber stage, and solid stage [6,7]. The composite changes from the liquid stage to rubber stage at the first increasing temperature stage in the autoclave process. The temperature gradient of composite will cause uneven resin flow and void formation at this stage [8,9]. It is vital to reduce the temperature gradient of composite part for improving the molding quality
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