Ismet Baran

A Review on the Mechanical Modeling of Composite Manufacturing Processes

The increased usage of fiber reinforced polymer composites in load bearing applications requires a detailed understanding of the process induced residual stresses and their effect on the shape distortions. This is utmost necessary in order to have more reliable composite manufacturing since the residual stresses alter the internal stress level of the composite part during the service life and the residual shape distortions may lead to not meeting the desired geometrical tolerances. The occurrence of residual stresses during the manufacturing process inherently contains diverse interactions between the involved physical phenomena mainly related to material flow, heat transfer and polymerization or crystallization. Development of numerical process models is required for virtual design and optimization of the composite manufacturing process which avoids the expensive trial-and-error based approaches. The process models as well as applications focusing on the prediction of residual stresses and shape distortions taking place in composite manufacturing are discussed in this study. The applications on both thermoset and thermoplastic based composites are reviewed in detail.

Constrained Efficient Global Optimization for Pultrusion Process

Composite materials, as the name indicates, are composed of different materials that yield superior performance as compared to individual components. Pultrusion is one of the most cost-effective manufacturing techniques for producing fiber-reinforced composites with constant cross-sectional profiles. This obviously makes it more attractive for both researchers and practitioners to investigate the optimum process parameters. Validated computer simulations cost less as compared to physical experiments, therefore this makes them an efficient tool for numerical optimization. However, the complexity of the numerical models can still be “expensive” and forces us to use them sparingly. These relatively more complex models can be replaced with “surrogates,” which are less complex and are therefore faster to evaluate representative models. In this article, a previously validated thermochemical simulation of the pultrusion process has shortly been presented. Following this, a new constrained optimization methodology based on a well-known surrogate method, i.e., Kriging, is introduced. Next, a validation case is presented to clarify the working principles of the implementation, which also supports the upcoming main optimization test cases. This design problem involves the design of the heating die with one, two, and three heaters together with the pulling speed. The results show that the proposed methodology is very efficient in finding the optimal process and design parameters.

The Internal Stress Evaluation of Pultruded Blades for a Darrieus Wind Turbine

This paper investigates the integrated modeling of a pultruded NACA0018 blade profile which is a part of the FP7 EU project DeepWind. The pultrusion process simulation is combined with the preliminary subsequent in-service load scenario. In particular, the process induced residual stresses and distortions are predicted by using a new approach combining a 3D Eulerian thermo-chemical analysis, in which the temperature and the cure degree distributions are obtained, and a 2D quasi-static plane strain mechanical analysis. The post-die region where convective cooling prevails is also included in the process model. The bending into shape of the pultruded blade profile is simulated with and without taking the residual stresses into account. The internal stress distribution in the profile is evaluated after the bending analysis and it is found that the process induced residual stresses have the potential to promote or to demote the internal stresses in the structural analysis.

Utilizing multiple objectives for the optimization of the pultrusion process based on a thermo-chemical simulation

Pultrusion is one of the most effective manufacturing processes for producing composites with constant cross-sectional profiles. This obviously makes it more attractive for both researchers and practitioners to investigate the optimum process parameters, i.e. pulling speed, power and dimensions of the heating platens, length and width of the heating die, design of the resin injection chamber, etc., to provide better understanding of the process, consequently to improve the efficiency of the process as well the product quality. Numerous simulation approaches have been presented until now. However, optimization studies had been limited with either experimental cases or determining only one objective to improve one aspect of the performance of the process. This objective is either augmented by other process related criteria or subjected to constraints which might have had the same importance of being treated as objectives. In essence, these approaches convert a true multi-objective optimization problem (MOP) into a single-objective optimization problem (SOP). This transformation obviously results in only one optimum solution and it does not support the efforts to get more out of an optimization study, such as relations between variables and objectives or constraints. In this study, an MOP considering thermo-chemical aspects of the pultrusion process (e.g. cure degree, temperatures), in which the pulling speed is maximized and the heating power is minimized simultaneously (without defining any preference between them), has been formulated. An evolutionary multi-objective optimization (EMO) algorithm, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II [Deb et al., 2002]), has been used to solve this MOP in an ideal way where the outcome is the set of multiple solutions (i.e. Pareto-optimal solutions) and each solution is theoretically an optimal solution corresponding to a particular trade-off among objectives. Following the solution process, in other words obtaining the Pareto-optimal front, a further postprocessing study has been performed to unveil some common principles existing between the variables, the objectives and the constraints either along the whole front or in some portion of it. These relationships will reveal a design philosophy not only for the improvement of the process efficiency, but also a methodology to design a pultrusion die for different operating conditions.

Probabilistic analysis of a thermosetting pultrusion process

Abstract In the present study, the effects of uncertainties in the material properties of the processing composite material and the resin kinetic parameters, as well as process parameters such as pulling speed and inlet temperature, on product quality (exit degree of cure) are investigated for a pultrusion process. A new application for the probabilistic analysis of the pultrusion process is introduced using the response surface method (RSM). The results obtained from the RSM are validated by employing the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) with Latin hypercube sampling technique. According to the results obtained from both methods, the variations in the activation energy as well as the density of the resin are found to have a relatively stronger influence on the centerline degree of cure at the exit. Moreover, different execution strategies are examined for the MCS to investigate their effects on the accuracy of the random output parameter.

Pultrusion processes for composite manufacture

In this chapter, numerical modeling strategies are presented for the pultrusion of thermosetting composite profiles. The focus is particularly on the forming die and postdie region in which the multiphysics takes place. The state-of-the-art thermochemical–thermomechanical models are exposed in which the main challenges, such as the process-induced stresses and shape deformations together with the temperature and curing history, are addressed. In these numerical models, a three-dimensional (3D) thermochemical analysis is sequentially coupled with a 2D quasi-static mechanical analysis of the pultrusion process. The process simulations are carried out not only for unidirectional (UD) composites but also for industrial pultruded parts that contain the combination of UD roving and continuous filament mat (CFM) layers. The predicted quantities, such as residual warpage and spring-in, are compared with the measured ones from the real pultruded products.

Numerical modeling of laser assisted tape winding process

Laser assisted tape winding (LATW) has become more and more popular way of producing new thermoplastic products such as ultra-deep sea water riser, gas tanks, structural parts for aerospace applications. Predicting the temperature in LATW has been a source of great interest since the temperature at nip-point plays a key role for mechanical interface performance. Modeling the LATW process includes several challenges such as the interaction of optics and heat transfer. In the current study, numerical modeling of the optical behavior of laser radiation on circular surfaces is investigated based on a ray tracing and non-specular reflection model. The non-specular reflection is implemented considering the anisotropic reflective behavior of the fiber-reinforced thermoplastic tape using a bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). The proposed model in the present paper includes a three-dimensional circular geometry, in which the effects of reflection from different ranges of the circular surface as well as effect of process parameters on temperature distribution are studied. The heat transfer model is constructed using a fully implicit method. The effect of process parameters on the nip-point temperature is examined. Furthermore, several laser distributions including Gaussian and linear are examined which has not been considered in literature up to now.Laser assisted tape winding (LATW) has become more and more popular way of producing new thermoplastic products such as ultra-deep sea water riser, gas tanks, structural parts for aerospace applications. Predicting the temperature in LATW has been a source of great interest since the temperature at nip-point plays a key role for mechanical interface performance. Modeling the LATW process includes several challenges such as the interaction of optics and heat transfer. In the current study, numerical modeling of the optical behavior of laser radiation on circular surfaces is investigated based on a ray tracing and non-specular reflection model. The non-specular reflection is implemented considering the anisotropic reflective behavior of the fiber-reinforced thermoplastic tape using a bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). The proposed model in the present paper includes a three-dimensional circular geometry, in which the effects of reflection from different ranges of the circular surface as...

Generating the Best Stacking Sequence Table for the Design of Blended Composite Structures

In order to improve the ability of a large-scale light-weight composite structure to carry tensile or compressive loads, stiffeners are added to the structure. The stiffeners divide the structure into several smaller panels. For a composite structure to be manufacturable, it is necessary that plies are continuous in multiple adjacent panels. To be able to prescribe a manufacturable design, an optimization algorithm can be coupled with a reference table for the stacking sequences (SST). As long as the ply stacks are selected from the SST, it is guaranteed that the design is manufacturable and all strength related guidelines associated with the design of composite structures are satisfied. An SST is made only based on strength related guidelines. Therefore, there exist a large number of possibilities for SSTs. Minimized mass is a typical goal in the design of aircraft structures. Different SSTs result in different values for the minimized mass. Thus it is crucial to perform optimization based on the SST which results in the lowest mass. This paper aims to introduce an approach to generate a unique SST resulting in the lowest mass. The proposed method is applied to the optimization problem of a stiffened composite structure resembling the skin of an aircraft wing box.

Computational Analysis of the Interaction between Impregnation, Forming and Curing in Pultrusion

Numerical and analytical models dealing with different physics involved in pultrusion are combined in the optic of an integrated analysis of the process. The impregnation stage is simulated by means of a CFD multiphase model, evaluating the pressure and velocity field in the liquid resin. Composite temperature and degree of cure are inferred using 3D thermo-chemical models. Finally, contact conditions, stresses and strains are derived applying computational simulation and analytical models, in order to predict the final pulling force. Different product sizes are considered, simulating suitable processing condition.

Investigation of the spring-in of a pultruded L-shaped profile for various processing conditions and thicknesses

In this study, a thermo-mechanical finite element model is developed to predict the spring-in of an industrially pultruded L-shaped profile made of glass/polyester composite. The resin curing kinetics are obtained from the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments. The development of the resin modulus is derived using the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) tests and the effective mechanical properties of the processing composite are calculated using a micromechanical model. The temperature and degree of cure distributions are obtained in a three dimensional (3D) thermo-chemical anlaysis using the finite element method (FEM). The process induced distortions are then calculated using these distributions in a 2D quasi-static mechanical analysis in which generalized plane strain elements are utilized. The predicted spring-in pattern at the end of the process is found to agree quite well with the one observed for the real pultruded parts in a commercial pultrusion company. In addition, the effects of the pulling speed and the part thickness on the spring-in formations are investigated using the proposed numerical simulation tool. It is found that the magnitude of the spring-in increases with an increase in the pulling speed and part thickness.