Experimental and Numerical Simulation of Resin Flowing in VARI Process

In this paper, the flow characteristics of resin in vacuum-assisted forming (VARI) process were studied by experiments and numerical simulation. The position and time of resin flow front were recorded by high-speed camera and timer. The viscosity of resin, porosity and permeability of composites were tested. Based on Darcy’s law, the resin permeability model in composite molding was derived, and the permeability was obtained by nonlinear fitting. The unit cell model of plain fabric was established and the flow characteristics of four kinds of viscosity resins were simulated by finite volume method. The flow profile and filling time were compared between experimental and numerical simulation, and the error between the model and the experiment is less than 12%, which verifies the accuracy of the model and shows that the model can be used to predict the flow behavior of resin with different viscosities in composite molding.