Bhudolia Somen K, Perrotey Pavel, Gohel Goram, Joshi Sunil C, Gerard Pierre, Leong Kah Fai
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore.
Carbon Axis, 34 Rue Jacques de Vaucanson, 17180 Perigny, France.
Polymers (Basel). 2021 Nov 24;13(23):4093. doi: 10.3390/polym13234093.
The bladder molding process is primarily used in sporting applications but mostly with prepregs. Bladder-Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (B-RTM) presents the tremendous potential to automate and mass produce the complex hollow-composite profiles. Thin-ply, non-crimp fabrics (NCFs) provide excellent mechanical, fracture toughness, and vibration damping properties on top of the weight saving it offers to a final product. However, these fiber architectures are difficult to inject due to the resistance they provide for the polymer flow using the liquid injection process. Therefore, it is mandatory to optimize the process parameters to reduce the time for injection and simultaneously achieve better consolidation. This work presents a first, detailed, experimental case study to successfully inject a low-permeability, thin-ply, complex, thermoplastic tubular structure, and the effect of process parameters, boundary conditions, the associated manufacturing challenges, and proposed solutions are deliberated in this paper.
气囊成型工艺主要用于体育用品应用,但大多与预浸料一起使用。气囊辅助树脂传递模塑(B-RTM)在自动化和大规模生产复杂的中空复合材料型材方面具有巨大潜力。薄铺层、非卷曲织物(NCF)除了能为最终产品减轻重量外,还具有出色的机械性能、断裂韧性和减振性能。然而,由于这些纤维结构在液体注射过程中会对聚合物流动产生阻力,因此很难进行注射。因此,必须优化工艺参数以减少注射时间并同时实现更好的压实。本文首次详细介绍了一个成功注射低渗透率、薄铺层、复杂热塑性管状结构的实验案例研究,并对工艺参数、边界条件、相关制造挑战及提出的解决方案进行了探讨。