Three-dimensional finite element simulation of curing of polymer composites

A coupled thermo-kinetic simulation of the liquid composite molding process based on a three-dimensional Galerkin finite element method is presented. The thermal equilibrium and chemical kinetics during the curing phase of Resin Transfer Molding process are obtained subject to mold temperature history and corresponding manufacturing process plans. The temperature and degree of cure fields, as well as their respective gradients are obtained during the curing process. The finite element implementation is geared toward solving large mesh problems in reasonable computational time by using banded in-core storage and storage of equations at the boundary nodes in a sparse matrix. Two numerical solutions are presented to illustrate the results obtained using this methodology. The obtained numerical solutions are compared with experimental data available in the literature. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.