Ll. Gascón

A fixed mesh numerical method for modelling the flow in liquid composites moulding processes using a volume of fluid technique

Abstract This paper presents the development and application of a numerical procedure for the simulation of the flow phenomena involved in composite manufacturing processes. The kinematic resolution combines a discretization of the volume fraction evolution equation and the verification of the movement and the incompressibility equations in a fixed mesh. We consider a variational formulation of Darcy’s flow weighted by the volume fraction and the variational formulation of a pseudo-behaviour associated with the empty part of the domain weighted by its complementary function. For the integration of the advection equation, which governs the volume fraction evolution, a second-order scheme with flux limiters has been used. In order to validate the proposed method, numerical results in one and two dimensions are presented.

Meshless methods with application to Resin Transfer Molding simulation

In this work it is studied and analyzed the possible advantages to simulate the mold filling process in Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) with an updated Lagrangian formulation. For this purpose, the well known meshless natural element method (NEM) was implemented to simulate the mold filling process. In this approach, nodes are distributed in the calculation domain, however no mesh is needed to interpolate the unknown functions. This technique presents some advantages over classical finite element simulations (FEM): (1) no remeshing of the transient saturated domain is required at each calculation step; (2) the accuracy of the interpolation is not significantly affected by the nodal distribution. The use of meshless techniques also prevents from having to cope with the numerical instabilities generally associated with the numerical resolution of the transport equations that arise in RTM, such as in the heat balance during mold filling or in the equations giving the position of the fluid front or the incubatio...

A numerical simulation of woven/anionic polyamide 6 composite part manufacturing using structural reactive injection moulding process

In this work, a structural reactive injection moulding process using reactive anionic polyamide 6 (APA-6) is studied. Semi-empirical equations for the prediction of the APA-6 reaction kinetics and an advection equation for void transport are used in the numerical scheme. A complex numerical simulation of reactive injection of ε-caprolactam was developed for a three-dimensional industrial part. The validity of the approach is demonstrated for determining an effective injection strategy, including the position of vents and gates and the most effective parameter values for minimum mould filling time without the formation of voids.