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Time-Variant Simulation of Multi-Material Thermal Pultrusion

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Abstract

Pultrusion being the viable and economical process for producing constant cross-section composite products, many variants of it are being tried out. This paper embarks on the pultrusion with multi-materials; typically of polymer foam/glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) sandwich panels. Unlike conventional composites pultrusion, this process with more than two material phases, one of them dry, poses a challenge in simulating the thermal co-curing within the die. In this paper, the formulation and development of three-dimensional, finite element/nodal control volume (FE/NCV) approach for such multi-material pultrusion is presented. The numerical features for handling the dry-wet material interfaces, material shrinkage, variations in pull speed and die heating, and foam-to-skin thickness ratio are discussed. Implementation of the FE/NCV procedure and its application in analyzing pultrusion of polymer foam/GFRP sandwich panels with multi-heater environment are presented.

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  1. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Sunil C. Joshi & X. Chen

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  1. Sunil C. Joshi
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  2. X. Chen
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Correspondence to Sunil C. Joshi.

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Joshi, S.C., Chen, X. Time-Variant Simulation of Multi-Material Thermal Pultrusion. Appl Compos Mater 18, 283–296 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-010-9156-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10443-010-9156-9

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