A model for permeability in fibre-reinforced plastics

Abstract

Increased use of continuous fibre-reinforced plastics (CoFRP) is being seen in the automotive industry due to their high strength specific properties. The manufacturing process, however, is still expensive due to the number of critical steps and material costs. Cost reduction is being combated by computational modelling of the infiltration and curing processes to predict void formation and other potential defects. The accuracy of these simulations is highly dependent on capturing the presence of the carbon sheets in the mould due to the large differences in permeability between flows parallel and normal to the fibre tows. This work presents a geometry-based method for locally orienting the fibre and thickness direction for 2D extruded CoFRP components. The capabilities of these methods will be presented by comparing the fibre orientation prediction for two geometries (i.e., hat channel and double dome) using three different draping schemes (i.e., 0°, 45°, and 90°) against the results of a validated draping simulation developed in LS-DYNA.