Injection Pultrusion Simulation for Polyester/Glass Mat/Rovings/Mat Composites

Abstract

Producing quality pultruded parts requires that complete wet out of the reinforcement fibers is achieved in the injection chamber. The magnitude of the injection pressure is extremely important for achieving good wet out of the fibers. This work focused on the impact of pull speed, resin viscosity, and product thickness on resin fiber wet out in the injection chamber for a polyester resin (mat/roving/mat) composite. Recommended injection pressures for complete wet out are predicted for given sets of processing parameters for polyester/glass fiber (mat/rovings/mat) composites. Flow through porous media (Darcy’s law) is employed to model the fiber/resin system of injection pultrusion. The governing equations are solved, by using the finite volume method, to predict the resin pressure, resin velocity field, and resin moving flow front location. The Gutowski (Gutowski, T.G., Morigaki, T. and Cai, Z. (1987). The Consolidation of Laminate Composites, Journal of Composite Materials. 21(7): 172-187) permeability model is used to determine the permeability in the roving layer and the Kozeny-Carman (Carman, P.C. (1939). Flow through Granular Beds, Trans. Int. Chem. Eng., 15: 150-166) model is used to predict the permeability in the mat layers.