scholarly journals Simulations of an Infrared Composite Curing Process

2013 ◽  
Vol 554-557 ◽  
pp. 1517-1522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sawsane Nakouzi ◽  
Florentin Berthet ◽  
Yannick Le Maoult ◽  
Fabrice Schmidt

Epoxy resins have several applications in the aerospace and automobile industry. Because of their good adhesive properties, superior mechanical, chemical and thermal properties, and resistance to fatigue and micro cracking, they produce high performance composites. In the technology presented here, the composite is cured in an IR oven which includes halogen lamps. The liquid resin infusion (LRI) process is used to manufacture the composite, whereby liquid resin is infused through a fiber reinforcement previously laid up in a one-sided mold. These epoxy resins release an exothermic heat flux during the curing process, which can possibly cause an excessive temperature in the thickness. Consequently, for the production of high performance composites, it is necessary to know the thermal behavior of the composite during curing. Therefore, IR interactions with the graphite/epoxy system were modeled as a surface radiation transport. In our work, we have studied IR interactions with the composite, which is placed in an IR oven. Using an IR spectrometer Bruker Vertex 70 (1-27 μm), we measured radiative properties and determined the fraction of IR rays absorbed by the composite. Since it is necessary to optimize the manufacturing time and costs and to determine the performance of these composites, the purpose of this study is to model the IR curing of a composite part (carbon fiber reinforced epoxy matrix) in the infrared oven. The work consists in two parts. In the first part, a FE thermal model based on radiosity method was developed, for the prediction of the infrared incident heat flux on the top surface of the composite during the curing process. This model was validated using a reference solution based on ray tracing algorithms developed in Matlab® (In-lab software called Rayheat based on ray tracing algorithms is used to compute the radiative heat flux that impacts the composite). Through the FE thermal model, an optimization study on the percentage power of each infrared heater is performed in order to optimize the incident IR heat flux uniformity on the composite. This optimization is performed using the Matlab® optimization algorithms based on Sequential Quadratic Programming method. In a second part, the optimized parameters set is used in a three-dimensional numerical model which is developed in the finite element commercial software Comsol Multiphysics ™, where the heat balance equation is coupled with the cure kinetic model of the resin. This numerical model allows calculation of the temperature distribution in the composite during curing, which is a key parameter that affects its mechanical properties. In this model, we can predict also the evolution of the degree of cure as function of time. Experimental measurements were used to validate simulations of the whole infrared composite curing process. Keywords: Curing composite, infrared oven, Radiation, Optimization, Epoxy resin, Carbon fibers.

2011 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Adrien Perret ◽  
Sébastien Mistou ◽  
Louis Etienne Denaud ◽  
Thierry Mollé ◽  
Claudia Veyrac ◽  
...  

FUSCOMP (FUSelage COMPosite) is a Research & Development program which has received the label from the Aerospace Valley competitiveness cluster. It will lead to a test of a composite fuselage demonstrator manufactured by the Liquid Resin Infusion (LRI) process. LRI is based on the moulding of high performance composite parts by infusing liquid resin on dry fibers instead of prepreg fabrics. The study of this proof of concept is based on the TBM 850 airframe, a pressurized business turboprop aircraft currently produced by DAHER-SOCATA. Technical achievements will concern numerical methods and finite elements analysis to be used for the modelling of this aircraft composite fuselage structure. Actual industrial projects face composite integrated structure issues as a number of structures (stiffeners,...) are more and more integrated onto the skins of aircraft fuselage. Indeed the main benefit of LRI is to reduce assembly steps which lead to cycle time gain and thus cost reduction. In particular, infusing components and sub-components at the same time avoids riveting parts altogether. However it is necessary to validate the dimensioning of the studied composite structure.


2012 ◽  
Vol 504-506 ◽  
pp. 1085-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Nakouzi ◽  
F. Berthet ◽  
D. Delaunay ◽  
Y. Le Maoult ◽  
Fabrice Schmidt ◽  
...  

The main purpose of this study is to cure a 3D geometry composite part (carbon fiber reinforced epoxy matrix) using an infrared oven. The work consists of two parts. In the first part, a FE thermal model was developed, for the prediction of the infrared incident heat flux on the top surface of the composite during the curing process. This model was validated using a reference solution based on ray tracing algorithms developed in Matlab®. Through the FE thermal model, an optimization study on the percentage power of each infrared heater is performed in order to optimize the incident IR heat flux uniformity on the composite. This optimization is performed using the Matlab® optimization algorithms based on Sequential Quadratic Programming and dynamically linked with the FE software COMSOL Multiphysics®. In a second part, the optimized parameters set is used in a model developed for the thermo-kinetic simulations of the composite IR curing process and the predictions of the degree of cure and temperature distribution in the composite part during the curing process.


Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 178
Author(s):  
Valerio Acanfora ◽  
Roberto Petillo ◽  
Salvatore Incognito ◽  
Gerardo Mario Mirra ◽  
Aniello Riccio

This work provides a feasibility and effectiveness analysis, through numerical investigation, of metal replacement of primary components with composite material for an executive aircraft wing. In particular, benefits and disadvantages of replacing metal, usually adopted to manufacture this structural component, with composite material are explored. To accomplish this task, a detailed FEM numerical model of the composite aircraft wing was deployed by taking into account process constraints related to Liquid Resin Infusion, which was selected as the preferred manufacturing technique to fabricate the wing. We obtained a geometric and material layup definition for the CFRP components of the wing, which demonstrated that the replacement of the metal elements with composite materials did not affect the structural performance and can guarantee a substantial advantage for the structure in terms of weight reduction when compared to the equivalent metallic configuration, even for existing executive wing configurations.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Eduardo Freitas ◽  
Pedro Pontes ◽  
Ricardo Cautela ◽  
Vaibhav Bahadur ◽  
João Miranda ◽  
...  

This study addresses the combination of customized surface modification with the use of nanofluids, to infer on its potential to enhance pool-boiling heat transfer. Hydrophilic surfaces patterned with superhydrophobic regions were developed and used as surface interfaces with different nanofluids (water with gold, silver, aluminum and alumina nanoparticles), in order to evaluate the effect of the nature and concentration of the nanoparticles in bubble dynamics and consequently in heat transfer processes. The main qualitative and quantitative analysis was based on extensive post-processing of synchronized high-speed and thermographic images. To study the nucleation of a single bubble in pool boiling condition, a numerical model was also implemented. The results show an evident benefit of using biphilic patterns with well-established distances between the superhydrophobic regions. This can be observed in the resulting plot of the dissipated heat flux for a biphilic pattern with seven superhydrophobic spots, δ = 1/d and an imposed heat flux of 2132 w/m2. In this case, the dissipated heat flux is almost constant (except in the instant t* ≈ 0.9 when it reaches a peak of 2400 W/m2), whilst when using only a single superhydrophobic spot, where the heat flux dissipation reaches the maximum shortly after the detachment of the bubble, dropping continuously until a new necking phase starts. The biphilic patterns also allow a controlled bubble coalescence, which promotes fluid convection at the hydrophilic spacing between the superhydrophobic regions, which clearly contributes to cool down the surface. This effect is noticeable in the case of employing the Ag 1 wt% nanofluid, with an imposed heat flux of 2132 W/m2, where the coalescence of the drops promotes a surface cooling, identified by a temperature drop of 0.7 °C in the hydrophilic areas. Those areas have an average temperature of 101.8 °C, whilst the average temperature of the superhydrophobic spots at coalescence time is of 102.9 °C. For low concentrations as the ones used in this work, the effect of the nanofluids was observed to play a minor role. This can be observed on the slight discrepancy of the heat dissipation decay that occurred in the necking stage of the bubbles for nanofluids with the same kind of nanoparticles and different concentration. For the Au 0.1 wt% nanofluid, a heat dissipation decay of 350 W/m2 was reported, whilst for the Au 0.5 wt% nanofluid, the same decay was only of 280 W/m2. The results of the numerical model concerning velocity fields indicated a sudden acceleration at the bubble detachment, as can be qualitatively analyzed in the thermographic images obtained in this work. Additionally, the temperature fields of the analyzed region present the same tendency as the experimental results.


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Cassardo ◽  
Seon Park ◽  
Sungmin O ◽  
Marco Galli

This study investigates the potential changes in surface energy budget components under certain future climate conditions over the Alps and Northern Italy. The regional climate scenarios are obtained though the Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) runs, based on a reference climate (1961–1990) and the future climate (2071–2100) via the A2 and B2 scenarios. The energy budget components are calculated by employing the University of Torino model of land Processes Interaction with Atmosphere (UTOPIA), and using the RegCM3 outputs as input data. Our results depict a significant change in the energy budget components during springtime over high-mountain areas, whereas the most relevant difference over the plain areas is the increase in latent heat flux and hence, evapotranspiration during summertime. The precedence of snow-melting season over the Alps is evidenced by the earlier increase in sensible heat flux. The annual mean number of warm and cold days is evaluated by analyzing the top-layer soil temperature and shows a large increment (slight reduction) of warm (cold) days. These changes at the end of this century could influence the regional radiative properties and energy cycles and thus, exert significant impacts on human life and general infrastructures.


2008 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Ley ◽  
C. Deshpande ◽  
B. Prapamcham ◽  
M. Naghavi

Vascular reactivity (VR) denotes changes in volumetric blood flow in response to arterial occlusion. Current techniques to study VR rely on monitoring blood flow parameters and serve to predict the risk of future cardiovascular complications. Because tissue temperature is directly impacted by blood flow, a simplified thermal model was developed to study the alterations in fingertip temperature during arterial occlusion and subsequent reperfusion (hyperemia). This work shows that fingertip temperature variation during VR test can be used as a cost-effective alternative to blood perfusion monitoring. The model developed introduces a function to approximate the temporal alterations in blood volume during VR tests. Parametric studies are performed to analyze the effects of blood perfusion alterations, as well as any environmental contribution to fingertip temperature. Experiments were performed on eight healthy volunteers to study the thermal effect of 3min of arterial occlusion and subsequent reperfusion (hyperemia). Fingertip temperature and heat flux were measured at the occluded and control fingers, and the finger blood perfusion was determined using venous occlusion plethysmography (VOP). The model was able to phenomenologically reproduce the experimental measurements. Significant variability was observed in the starting fingertip temperature and heat flux measurements among subjects. Difficulty in achieving thermal equilibration was observed, which indicates the important effect of initial temperature and thermal trend (i.e., vasoconstriction, vasodilatation, and oscillations).


Author(s):  
David L. Damm ◽  
Andrei G. Fedorov

Thermo-mechanical failure of components in planar-type solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) depends strongly on the local temperature gradients at the interfaces of different materials. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to accurately predict the temperature fields within the stack, especially near the interfaces. Because of elevated operating temperatures (of the order of 1000 K or even higher), radiation heat transfer could become a dominant mode of heat transfer in the SOFCs. In this study, we extend our recent work on radiative effects in solid oxide fuel cells (Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 124, No. 2, pp. 453–458) by accounting for the spectral dependence of the radiative properties of the electrolyte material. The measurements of spectral radiative properties of the polycrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte we performed indicate that an optically thin approximation can be used for treatment of radiative heat transfer. To this end, the Schuster-Schwartzchild two-flux approximation is used to solve the radiative transfer equation (RTE) for the spectral radiative heat flux, which is then integrated over the entire spectrum using an N-band approximation to obtain the total heat flux due to thermal radiation. The divergence of the total radiative heat flux is then incorporated as a heat sink into a 3-D thermo-fluid model of a SOFC through the user-defined function utility in the commercial FLUENT CFD software. The results of sample calculations are reported and compared against the baseline cases when no radiation effects are included and when the spectrally gray approximation is used for treatment of radiative heat transfer.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Garrison ◽  
Perrin Storch ◽  
William S. Eck ◽  
Valerie Adams ◽  
Patrick Fedick ◽  
...  

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a versatile petrochemical used in the preparation of high volume polymers including polycarbonates and epoxy resins. Unfortunately, BPA is also an endocrine disrupter and has been...


2021 ◽  
Vol 410 ◽  
pp. 542-547
Author(s):  
Elena S. Dergunova ◽  
German S. Dedyaev ◽  
Margarita A. Goncharova

New protective coating compositions based on epoxy resins with high rates of chemical resistance to etching solutions are developed. The chemical resistance coefficient ranges from 0.7 to 0.96. The curing process was evaluated via IR spectroscopy. For each composition, the following parameters were determined: impact strength A, compressive strength σcompr and bending strength σbend, adhesion shear strength σshear, glass transition temperature Tgt, high elasticity modulus Eh and mesh density nm.


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