Analysis of Upper-and Lower-limits of Fill Time in Resin Transfer Mold Filling Simulation

Abstract

The finite element/control volume method (FE/CVM) is widely used to simulate resin flow in resin transfer molding process. There exists the errors of varying degree in the fill time with the use of the approach. In this paper, the reasons leading to such errors are investigated. The conception of the up-and down-stream flow rates is introduced. An Unsaturated Flow Layer (UFL) technique to predict and track the movement of the free surface is presented, in which the downstream flow rate is used. The fill time obtained by the analytical solutions, the UFL technique and the traditional FE/CVM have been compared with each other. It is validated that the numerical fill time with the UFL technique and the traditional FE/CVM are the upper-and lower-limits of the analytical fill time respectively. The notable errors of numerical solutions obtained by the traditional FE/CVM and the UFL technique were both observed. A new Weighted Average Flux (WAF) approach is further proposed to eliminate the problem. A simple analytical formula for weighted factors is derived, through which the solution accuracy of the different numerical techniques are discussed. A variety of examples including 1-D, 2-D00, 2.5-D00 shell geometries and fully 3-D flows are presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed approach. The results show that the WAF approach cannot give solutions in excellent agreement with the analytical solutions, but also can save the computer time, compared with traditional FE/CVM.

Keywords

simulation resin transfer molding (RTM)fill time unsaturated flow layer (UFL)weighted average flux (WAF)finite element/control volume method (FE/CVM)

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