Abstract
A stochastic multi-objective cure optimisation methodology is developed in this work and applied to the case of thick epoxy/carbon fibre laminates. The methodology takes into account the uncertainty in process parameters and boundary conditions and minimises the mean values and standard deviations of cure time and temperature overshoot. Kriging is utilised to construct a surrogate model of the cure substituting Finite Element (FE) simulation for computational efficiency reasons. The surrogate model is coupled with Monte Carlo and integrated into a stochastic multi-objective optimisation framework based on Genetic Algorithms. The results show a significant reduction of about 40% in temperature overshoot and cure time compared to standard cure profiles. This reduction is accompanied by a reduction in variability by about 20% for both objectives. This highlights the opportunity of replacing conventional cure schedules with optimised profiles achieving significant improvement in both process efficiency and robustness.
Highlights
The optimisation of the manufacturing of continuous fibre thermosetting matrix composites is critical for minimising cost and the likelihood of occurrence of process failures defects
The results have shown the existence of a trade-off between the two objectives with an L shaped Pareto front incorporating solutions that can achieve improvements of about 50% with respect to both cure time and overshoot compared to standard cure profiles
The stochastic multi-objective optimisation methodology developed in this study accounts for different sources of uncertainty by implementing a Monte Carlo simulation integrated into a Genetic Algorithms (GAs) to minimise temperature overshoot, cure time and their variability
Summary
The optimisation of the manufacturing of continuous fibre thermosetting matrix composites is critical for minimising cost and the likelihood of occurrence of process failures defects. During the process of cure, the thermosetting resin transforms from an oligomeric liquid to a glassy solid through an exothermic crosslinking reaction. In the case of thick components the heat generated due to the reaction can lead to severe temperature overshoots. These can affect considerably the quality of the manufactured component. The risks associated with temperature overshoots in thick components are dealt with by adopting conservative cure cycles. This in turn results in long processing times and high manufacturing costs
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