Effect of Curing Induced Parameters During Manufacturing of Textile Composites

Abstract

Fiber-reinforced composite materials are widely used in the aerospace and automobile industries. Textile composites have shown promising capabilities for light-weight and high strength applications. During the compaction of the VARTM process, due to the presence of woven yarns, the adjacent layers of fabric compress against each other, resulting in a formation known as nesting. Nesting causes obstructions to the resin flow during the manufacturing process, leading to voids and/or resin rich areas in the composite. Another important parameter during manufacturing of composites is the curing temperature. Higher curing temperature accelerates the curing process but at the same time residual stress develops within the composites. Which leads to poor mechanical properties of the composites. So, it is very important to know the optimum curing temperature for a particular composites. Different curing temperatures is investigated in this paper to observe any damage on the matrix due to rapid curing. The computational framework under development will encompass the effects is compaction on the dry fabric, curing of the liquid resin, and subsequent response to service loads (example tensile loading).