Injection simulations of thick composite parts manufactured by the RTM process

In order to simulate the resin flow occurring in a reinforcement during man ufacture of composite materials by resin transfer moulding (RTM); the numer ical codes need data such as the permeability, K, of the reinforcement. In the case of thick parts (e.g. a few centimetres thick), the spatial compone nts of the permeability can be deduced from experimental kinetics if we are able to visualise the resin path in the reinforcement opaque bulk. Here we describe the original technique we used to achieve this aim and we demonst rate the results of X-ray spectrography for the determination of the kineti cs of spatial flows through a porous medium. We then propose a mathematical approach in order to treat our experimental results and calculate the valu es of K. Finally, examples of simulations are compared to the corresponding experimental observations. These simulations are obtained from two numeric al codes based on the finite-differences technique with curvilinear meshes and finite elements with control volumes, respectively, (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.