Numerical simulation of resin flow, mould deflection and reinforcement deformation in RTM Light processing

Abstract

A numerical simulation of the RTM Light manufacturing process must capture the interactions between resin flow, preform deformation and mould deflection that occur during filling and post-filling. From a numerical solution perspective, RTM Light is similar to the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) class of problems, where the ‘fluid’ is a saturating deformable porous media and the structure is a compliant mould. Previous implementations of RTM Light simulations have been based on a partitioned solution procedure, using independent solvers for the flow and structure modules and a fixed point iteration coupling method. While this type of coupling has been successfully implemented in the solution of a number of FSI problems, it is prone to instability when coupling between the subdomains is strong, as is the case in RTM Light. This paper presents the development of a finite element RTM light simulation and compares performance of a number of partitioned and monolithic solution approaches for solving the coupled structural and flow problem. The flexibility of the code is demonstrated by simulating the limiting cases of zero mould compliance (i.e. RTM) and complete compliance (i.e. Resin Infusion/VARTM), along with the intermediate case of RTM Light.