Open Access

ARTICLE

Numerical Study on the Resin Transfer Molding Curing Process for Thick Composites Materials

Rida Tazi¹, Adil Echchelh¹, Mohammed Hattabi², Mohammed El Ganaoui³, Aouatif Saad^4,*

1 Laboratory of Materials and Energy, Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco
2 ENSEM, University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco
3 LERMAB/IUT Longwy, Institut Carnot, Nancy, France
4 Advanced Systems Engineering Laboratory, National School of Applied Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco

* Corresponding Author: Aouatif Saad. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Materials and Energy an Updated Image for 2021)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2023, 19(1), 223-232. https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2023.021976

Received 15 February 2022; Accepted 30 March 2022; Issue published 02 August 2022

Abstract

The successful manufacture of thick composites is challenging since the highly exothermic nature of thermoset resins and limited temperature control make avoiding the onset of detrimental thermal gradients within the composite relatively difficult. This phenomenon is mainly caused by exothermic heat reactions. The so-called Michaud's model has been largely used in the literature to reduce the gap between experience and simulation with regard to the effective prediction of the temperature cycle in these processes. In this work, another solution is proposed to simulate the curing process for thick composites, namely preheating the resin to activate the curing reaction before resin injection into the mold. A good agreement between the experiment and the simulation is found. Moreover, in order to minimize the thermal gradient in the final composite, the thermophysical properties of the fiber and the torque (temperature, time) of the Plate have been varied leading to interesting results.

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Keywords

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