Multiphysics Coupling Study on Impregnation Process of Hot-Melt Resin in Fiber Fabrics for Composite Material Production

Since the resin-based composite materials are of essential importance in many key engineering fields, the manufacture processes are highly worth studying and optimizing for satisfying quality control at the highest possible production rate. In this paper, combined with the impregnation theory, the flow-thermal-mechanical multiphysics coupling model is built to characterize, investigate and optimize the osmotic flow process of hot-melt resin in fiber fabrics with the uniformity and adequacy of resin impregnation as the evaluation criteria. First, the osmotic flow process is characterized by the osmotic flow front of resin, which is tracked by the phase-field method. Then, the influencing factors of roller clearance, temperature and speed are comprehensively investigated. After that, the simulation data of resin impregnation degree are fitted by polynomial curves, with accuracy up to 96.13%, for further investigation of interaction between influencing factors. Finally, based on the above results, the operation parameter combination for impregnation process is optimized with the response surface method and provided as the guidance for practical application.