Thickness Variation Reduction for Vartm Process

ISBN-13: 9783639128710 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 144 str.

Jing Li

Opis

Vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM), one of a commonly used composite manufacturing processes, is becoming more popular. To optimize the manufacturing process, reduce costs, and maintain consistent part quality, knowledge of mold filling, especially flow through thickness direction is required. This work investigates the mechanism of the thickness variation dynamic change during the infusion and curing/relaxing processes. A numerical model is developed to track the thickness change of the bagging film free surface. In addition, this work analyzes the sources of the uncertainties and quantifies the magnitudes of the uncertainties by error propagation theory to characterize the statistical properties of the permeability values. Factors related to the part thickness variation areidentified with design of experiments method and a better tooling design is obtained by configuring the different flow media. The parameter uncertainty that leads to part-to-part thickness variation isalso investigated and a stochastic process simulation coupled with optimization is effectively demonstrated.

O autorze

Dr. Jing Li is a Senior Engineer at Cummins Inc. His research
interests include advanced measurement technology and
statistical modeling. He received his bachelor degree from
Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (China) and
master s and doctoral degrees in Industrial Engineering from
Florida State University.