Transport Phenomena in Thermal Engineering. Volume 2

ISBN Print: 1-56700-015-0

MODELING OF MOLD FILLING PROCESS DURING RESIN TRANSFER MOLDING

DOI: 10.1615/ISTP-VI.510
pages 1102-1107

Abstract

In the present study, numerical simulations of mold filling process during resin transfer molding (RTM) were performed using the control volume finite element method (CVFEM) and the Galerkin finite element method (FEM). Isotropic and anisotropic preforms were considered using both methods. In RTM process, chemical reaction takes place along with the resin flow. Therefore, it was necessary to include the conservation of chemical species of the reacting resin. Experiments were performed to verify the validity of the numerical results. A close agreement between the numerical and experimental results was observed. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of the numerical scheme, calculations were done for a three dimensional shell structure.