Numerical modelling of the flow in a swelling preform during LCM mould filling

Abstract

Composite industry increasingly uses natural fibres because of their environment-friendly advantages. These natural fibres may swell during the mould filling process when they absorb resin, and this swelling reduces the porosity and permeability of the preform. Hence, computational modelling of the flow in swelling porous media would be useful to model the different mould filling processes with the swelling effect. This paper demonstrates the possibility of using computational fluid dynamics to study the effect of swelling on liquid composite moulding mould filling in isotropic and orthotropic porous media. An empirical relation for local permeability changes is used to model the flow of resin under constant volume flow rate and constant injection pressure conditions. The flow front locations and inlet pressure predicted by the computational fluid dynamics simulations are in good agreement with the experimental data for 1D rectilinear flow case. Further, to capture the flow patterns, two different arrangements employing point injection are considered. It was observed that the volume fraction of resin in swelling porous medium is 6% less than rigid porous medium at any given time. It was also observed that the location of the inlet and outlet has a considerable effect on the flow front advancement.

Keywords

Porous media swelling permeability the volume of fluid method liquid composite moulding Darcy law

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Wool

and Khot

SN.

Bio-based resins and natural fibers. In: Miracle DB and Donaldson SL (eds) Composites. ▪: ASM International vol. 21, 2001. p. 184–192.

Masoodi

RP.

Modeling the processing of natural fiber composites made using liquid composite molding. In: SP Scrivener-Wiley (ed) Handbook of bioplastics and biocomposites engineering applications, Hoboken New Jersey, 2011, pp.43–73.

Rodriguez

Giacomelli

and Vazquez

Permeability-porosity relationship in RTM for different fiberglass and natural reinforcements. J Compos Mater 2004; 38: 259–268.

Umer

Bickerton

and Fernyhough

Modelling the application of wood fibre reinforcements within liquid composite moulding processes. Compos Part A: Appl Sci Manuf 2008; 39: 624–639.

Zade

and Kuppusamy

RRP.

Mould fill time sensitivity analysis using isothermal mould filling simulations for applications in liquid composite moulding processes. Mater Today: Proc 2019; 27: 167–171.

Saad

Echchelh

Hattabi

, et al. An optimized control volume/finite element method (CV/FEM) for non-isothermal liquid composite molding (LCM) process. In: Driss Z, Necib B, Zhang H-C (eds) Thermo-mechanics applications and engineering technology. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018, pp.81–118.

Coulter

and Guceri

SI.

Resin impregnation during the manufacturing of composite materials subject to prescribed injection rate. J Reinforced Plastics Compos 1988; 7: 200–219.

Yoo

and Lee

WI.

Numerical simulation of the resin transfer mold filling process using the boundary element method. Polym Compos 1996; 17: 368–374.

and Lee

WI.

A study on the mold filling process in resin transfer molding. Polym Eng Sci 1991; 31: 765–771.

10.

Chang

C-Y

and Hourng

L-W.

Numerical simulation for the transverse impregnation in resin transfer molding. J Reinforced Plastics Compos 1998; 17: 165–182.

11.

Trochu

Gauvin

and Gao

DM.

Numerical analysis of the resin transfer molding process by the finite element method. Adv Polym Technol 1993; 12: 329–342.

12.

Shojaei

Ghaffarian

and Karimian

SM-H.

Numerical simulation of three-dimensional mold filling in resin transfer molding. J Reinforced Plastics Compos 2003; 22: 1497–1529.

13.

Shojaei

Ghaffarian

and Karimian

SM-H.

Numerical analysis of controlled injection strategies in resin transfer molding. J Compos Mater 2003; 37: 1011–1035.

14.

Bruschke

and Advani

SG.

A numerical approach to model non-isothermal viscous flow through fibrous media with free surfaces. Int J Numer Meth Fluids 1994; 19: 575–603.

15.

Masoodi R, Tan H, Pillai KM. Darcy's law–based numerical simulation for modeling 3D liquid absorption into porous wicks. AIChE journal 2011; 57(5): 1132–1143.

16.

Porto

Letzow

Santos

, et al. Computational modeling of RTM and LRTM processes applied to complex geometries. ▪: ▪, 2012.

17.

Yang

Jin

, et al. Three-dimensional numerical simulation of mold filling process in compression resin transfer molding. Appl Compos Mater 2015; 22: 209–230.

18.

Yang

Tang

Wang

, et al. Three-dimensional numerical simulation of the filling stage in resin infusion process. J Compos Mater 2016; 50: ▪

19.

Masoodi

Tan

and Pillai

KM.

Numerical simulation of liquid absorption in paper-like swelling porous media. AIChE J 2012; 58: 2536–2544.

20.

Masoodi

Pillai

Grahl

, et al. Numerical simulation of LCM mold-filling during the manufacture of natural fiber composites. J Reinforced Plastics Compos 2012; 31: 363–378.

21.

Francucci

Rodríguez

and Morán

Novel approach for mold filling simulation of the processing of natural fiber reinforced composites by resin transfer molding. J Compos Mater 2014; 48: 191–200.

22.

Mirnyy V, Clausnitzer V, Diersch HG, Rosati R, Schmidt M, Beruda H. Wicking in absorbent swelling porous materials. In Masoodi R, Pillai KM (eds). Wicking in Porous Materials Traditional and Modern Modeling Approaches. CRC Press. USA. 2012 Oct 26: 161–200.

23.

Fluent

Ansys fluent theory guide. USA: ANSYS Inc., vol. 15317, 2011, pp.724–746.

24.

Masoodi

and Pillai

KM.

Darcy's law-based model for wicking in paper-like swelling porous media. AIChE J 2010; 56: 2257–2267.

25.

Javadi A, Pillai KM, Sabo R. An experimental estimation of liquid absorption coefficient for cellulose nano-fiber films. In: 11th international conference on flow processes in composite materials (FPCM11), Auckland, July 2012, pp. 9–12.

26.

Chattopadhyay

and Guthrie

RI.

Single phase, two phase, and multiphase flows, and methods to model these flows. treatise on process metallurgy. ▪: Elsevier, 2014, pp.527–553.

27.

Srinivasan

Salazar

and Saito

Modeling the disintegration of modulated liquid jets using volume-of-fluid (VOF) methodology. Appl Math Model 2011; 35: 3710–3730.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.25 MB