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Composites: Part B
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compositesb
Department of Astronautic Electrical and Energy Engineering, Sapienza Universit di Roma, Italy
Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory, Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali S.c.p.A., Italy
c
Research & Innovation Technology, Alenia Aermacchi S.p.A, Italy
b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 21 November 2012
Received in revised form 9 September 2013
Accepted 16 September 2013
Available online 26 September 2013
Keywords:
E. Resin transfer molding (RTM)
A. Polymermatrix composites (PMCs)
Numerical analysis
a b s t r a c t
This paper presents the numerical process analysis and the experimental investigation for the manufacturing of a reinforced carbon-ber demonstrator of a large aeronautic beam by resin transfer molding
(RTM). The component is a primary structure characterized by several thick sections with abrupt changes
in shape that complicates the resin impregnation of the preform. Process simulations based on a nite
element method-modied control volume (FEM-CV) were conducted to investigate the resin ow front
patterns and nd the injection scheme that guarantees both a good impregnation of the preform and a
lling time compatible with the resin gel time. The beam component was successfully manufactured,
and a good agreement between the numerical analysis and the fabrication process was demonstrated.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Aerospace industries always investigate new technology solutions responding to the market pressure and the technology demands. In order to comply with the environmental directions on
CO2 emissions, the next global objective is to reduce 50% of consumed fuel by 2020 and a further 20% by 2025. These objectives
can be reached in several ways, the use of lightweight structures
being the most cost effective from the industrial point of view.
For these reasons, aerospace companies, which are traditionally
based on the use of metal alloys, have turned to the research and
development of composite polymeric materials. The main advantages of polymeric composites with respect to metals, such as resistance to corrosion and fatigue, and high performance/weight ratio,
are a set of qualities for winning the current and future applications. In this context, resin transfer molding (RTM) is a cost-competitive process to manufacture composite structures for
aeronautics [15]. Many parts manufactured using RTM in the
aerospace eld have been mostly related to non-critical structures,
whereas the development of large critical structures by RTM still
requires large research efforts. A good design for RTM leads to fabrication of three-dimensional near-net-shape parts, offering production of cost-effective structural parts in medium volume
quantities [2,6].
Also, so far RTM process have been used for the manufacture of
thin laminate structures and very little work on thick composites
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 06 49 919 756; fax: +39 06 49 919 757.
E-mail address: susanna.laurenzi@uniroma1.it (S. Laurenzi).
1359-8368/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2013.09.039
48
Fig. 1. Beam element of thrust reverser in nacelle (top); the beam is typically 1000 mm long and it has complex 3D shape with several thick sections as shown in CAD model
(bottom).
Table 1
Processing conditions adopted for experimental tests and numerical analysis. The demonstrator was fabricated with the process parameter of the system Epsilon II 99110 as
reported in this table.
Resin
Density (g/cm3)
Pre-heating T (C)
Injection T (C)
Cure cycle
HexFlow RTM 6
Epsilon II 99110
1.12
1.22
80
110
80
110
180
100
240
240
75 min at 160 C
90 min at 180 C
49
Fig. 2. Steps showing from concept to realization of a part of the preform; rst, the shape and paths of each layer is studied by simulating the laying and the overlapping (a
and b). When the ply-book is completed, the layers are cut by an automatic machine (c), nally the layers are positioned on the mold and the preform is consolidated under
vacuum.
Table 2
Characteristics of stacking sequence adopted for the typical thicknesses of the
preform; these features were also used for the experimental part related to
permeability calculation.
Thickness
(mm)
Fiber volume
fraction
Number of
plies
Lamination sequence
3
10
0.55
0.55
8
26
20
0.55
52
30
0.550.53
76
[0/+45/45/90]S
[0/(03/+453/453/
90)]S
[0/(03/+453/453/
90)2/90]S
[0/(03/+453/453/
90)3/90]S
50
3. Flow analysis
The numerical analysis was performed using the commercial
code MoldFlow. The modeling of the resin ow allows investigation of the resin ow patterns during the impregnation process
and strategical designing of the gates and vents locations [8]. A
critical issue is the optimal lling of the composite part while
avoiding dry spots and premature gelling of the resin.
The RTM process is simulated using numerical methods based
on nite element-modied control volume (FEM-CV) analysis. This
method uses the porous media ow approach, solving the Darcy
equation coupled with the continuity and energy equations at
any instant during the lling process for given boundary conditions. The control volume consists of a fabric unit cell formed by
bers and porosity.
The continuity equation is derived from the mass balance of the
ow rate in the control volume:
@q
U rq q r U s
@t
where q is the actual density of the resin, that is the mass of resin
divided by the control volume containing both resin
and ber, and
may not be constant within the control volume; U is the resin velocity, and s are the sink effects due to the porous medium.
The Darcys law Eq. (2) describes the ow of a viscous uid
through an anisotropic, homogenous, porous medium:
1
0
K xx
ux
1
@ uy A
@ K yx
l1 mf K
uz
zx
K xy
K yy
K zy
10 @P 1
K xz
@x
A
K yz A@ @P
@y
@P
K zz
@z
Fig. 3. View of the FEM model adopted in the simulation process of the beam with
the indication of the regions for the injection scheme.
injection pressure above 3 bars produces ber washing phenomena and local reinforcement deformations.
The main objective of the simulations was to determine the
injection scheme that guaranteed a good impregnation of the beam
preform in agreement with the process window. In particular, the
total lling time of the mold had to be lower than the resin gel
time. This requirement is strongly inuenced by the injection strategy. For components with simple geometry, the choices for the
injection gate positions are limited and can be easily adjusted
using simple simulations. In our case, the beam geometry was
rather complex and the choice of the initial injection scheme was
fundamental to reduce the number of possible gate locations. For
this reason, we performed the ow analysis considering a potential
injection scheme established by taking into account some physical
and technological observations. First of all, the ow rate through a
porous medium drops during the impregnation phase, and in particular tends to decrease drastically in the proximity of abrupt geometrical changes such as T-shape edges and increased thicknesses.
In order to compensate for the pressure drop it would be necessary
to increase the injection pressure. On the other hand, this solution
can produce a local ber deformation and ber washing phenomena, which affect the quality of the nal product. Alternatively, the
use of schemes with multiple gates can be adopted, even though it
is not recommended for complex shapes. The running of several
ow fronts can create dry spots and introduce operational difculties, because each of them needs to be controlled and opened at the
right time. Based on these considerations, there was a clear preference for the injection channels scheme (Fig. 3). In particular, the
starting injection scheme was linear and positioned along the thick
part of the beam corresponding to the elongated edge. This would
allow for one single resin inlet port, thus simplifying the resin dispensing system. In order to compensate for the pressure around
the ribs on the bottom side, additional gates were considered on
the short edge. The vent points were positioned on opposite sides
and close to the torque box to push the resin through it. This initial
injection scheme was adjusted until satisfactory results in terms of
lling times and preform impregnation were reached. The optimal
injection scheme was then used to design the mold for the beam.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Determination of permeability
In general, preforms show different permeability value in different directions due to the anisotropy of the ber architecture. As the
thickness of the composite part is typically negligible compared
with the in plane-dimensions, the permeability assumes a
two-dimensional form, where the in plane-directions ow resistances are considered predominant. On the other hand, in the case
of thick preforms, the permeability value in the out-of-plane direction cannot be neglected due to the ow front through the thickness. This value is difcult to determine experimentally. Several
authors relied on laborious mathematical models that often require a large amount of experimental data [2,917]. From an
industrial point of view, these approaches are not cost-effective
and a faster method to obtain input for the design of the injection
scheme is required. In order to overcome these issues, in our work
we introduced an effective in-plane permeability value, which also
takes into account the transverse ow through the thickness. This
approach started from the observation that the permeability K is
indirectly determined by experimental data. Usually, the in-plane
measurements consist of recording the ow front position at each
time, and then tting the data by the integral of the Darcy equation
between the position of the injection point at time t0 (x0, y0) and
the position of the ow front at time tf(xf, yf). The integral of the
Darcys law for the one-dimensional experimental approach is
given by the following expression:
xf
s
2K X rPt f
lu
Kx
lu x2f
2rP t f
The permeability values determined experimentally suffer generally from lack of reproducibility, and a large number of experiments are required to obtain an average value. We should stress
that typically the permeability is calculated from the linear part
of the curve assuming that the resin ow can be considered quasi-stationary. In reality, the curve can be not linear due to the
dual-scale porosity of the preform, and therefore the permeability
value is an approximation of several factors that relate to the different resin ows through the preform. An example of typical trend of
the squared ow front position (x2f ) as a function of the lling time
(tf) is presented in Fig. 4. In the graph, the dashed line is the linear
approximation of the curve used to determine the permeability. The
plotted data refer to the real case of a carbon ber-reinforced laminate for permeability experiments that were conducted using two
different injection pressures, as indicated in the picture. Starting
from these considerations, we considered a different approach
based on the simple measurement of the total lling time necessary
to impregnate a rectangular plate. The experimental set-up was
previously described in Section 2.2. After determining the preform
lling time through experiments, an iterative numerical analysis
was run by varying the permeability value until the same lling
time obtained experimentally was reached. The numerical analysis
was based on a FEM-CV model reproducing exactly the part geometry as the experiment, and with the material data (viscosity and ber volume fraction) as those adopted in the experiments. In this
approach, the permeability value is resolved along the total geometrical dimensions and the total lling time, and it includes the
interaction of ber reinforcement and resin that are used in reality.
In fact, the traditional experimental characterization of the permeability requires the use of a liquid (not resin) that interacts differently with the bers. In our case, the effects of the ow through
the thickness are included in a global permeability value. This
method is particularly suitable for quasi-isotropic laminates, where
the permeability values are almost the same. In our procedure the
in-plane permeability values Kxx and Kyy were assumed to be equal
51
52
Fig. 5. Simulation Case 1; numerical results of injection scheme with the injection channel along the thick edge and on the short one. In particular, the picture shows the ow
front position as a function of the lling time and the pressure gradient distribution inside the mold at the end of the lling. The total lling time is 1 h 54 min.
Fig. 6. Simulation Case 2; numerical results of the scheme with the injection channel along the thick edge having a reduced length respects to the Case 1. In particular, the
picture shows the ow front position as a function of the lling time and the pressure gradient distribution inside the mold at the end of the lling phase. The total lling time
is 2 h 6 min.
resin and the formation of dry regions due to the pressure drop.
Fig. 9 compares the ow patterns of simulation Cases 1 and 2 at
the same time step before reaching the vent. It is clear that in Case
1 the resin reaches the vent before impregnating the entire preform. The expected dry zones are indicated in Fig. 9.
Fig. 10 gives an enlarged view of the torque box area for the
cases considered here. In particular, the picture shows the ow
53
Fig. 7. Simulation Case 3; numerical results of the scheme with the injection channel along the thick edge having a reduced length respects to the Case 2. In particular, the
picture shows the ow front position as a function of the lling time and the pressure gradient distribution inside the mold at the end of the lling phase. The total lling time
is 3 h 40 min.
Fig. 8. Comparison of ow patterns for simulation Cases 2 and 3 at a given lling time.
front position at the lling time when the resin reaches the vent for
the injection scheme of simulation Case 1. In this case, a large dry
area is formed in proximity of the torque box by the time the resin
has reached the vent (Fig. 10a). This is due to fact that the injection
scheme is along the entire length of the beam, and the resin injection channel is near to the vent. Therefore, the resin reaches the
vent before nishing the impregnation of the entire torque box
54
Fig. 9. Comparison of ow patterns for Case 1 and Case 2 at a given lling time. In Case 1, the red arrows point to the expected dry zone caused by the resin reaching the vent
before the impregnation of the preform is completed.
Fig. 10. Comparison of the ow front position at the given lling time around the torque box areas for the three simulation cases under consideration. In simulation Case 1, a
dry area occurs in correspondence of the torque box when the resin has already reached the vent (a). In simulation Case 2, the resin ow front proceeds uniformly towards the
vent (b). In simulation Case 3, the torque box area shows a large dry zone when the resin is in proximity of the vent (c).
55
injection channel, as in Case 3 (Fig. 10c), the torque box area shows
regions that are not completed lled.
Based on these analyses, the injection scheme of the simulation
Case 2 was adopted to design and fabricate the mold. This injection
scheme represents a good compromise between the process window and the material behavior. We found that the experimental
lling time to manufacture the beam was in agreement with the
numerical values. The injection time was about 2 h 20 min, very
close to the predicted value with an injection pressure of 3 bars.
The nal piece shows a complete impregnation of all the required
areas with no macroscopic defects on the surface (Fig. 11). It
should be underlined that the use of effective permeability values,
as we reported in this work, was an efcient way to reduce the
number of experimental investigations required for such a complex geometry, resulting in a good agreement between the experimental and numerical lling times.
5. Conclusions
In this work a lightweight structural beam was successfully
manufactured and prototyped in polymeric composite materials
as a replacement for aluminum based ones. The composite component has paintable and aesthetical high grade surfaces, and offers a
20% weight saving over the aluminum part. The injection scheme
was established following the numerical ow analyses while
adopting a new methodology to include the out-plane ow effects
typical of thick sections in effective in-plane permeability values.
This method is particularly useful in industrial settings where
experimental and trial error methods should be minimized. This
technological demonstrator is a proof of concept for resin transfer
molded structural composite parts to replace metal in primary
structures for aeronautic applications.
Acknowledgements
This project was funded by the Italian Ministry of Education,
University and Research (MIUR). The authors acknowledge DEMA
S.p.A. (Italy) for contribution to the design and construction of
the beam mold. Dr. M.G. Santonicola (MESA+ Institute for
Nanotechnology, University of Twente, the Netherlands) and