Modeling of Impregnation in the Pultrusion of Thermoplastic Composites

The impregnation prediction of melted thermoplastic into reinforced fiber is the one of the challenges in pultrusion of thermoplastic composites. In this paper, tow impregnation models has been presented to analyze the impregnation in the pultrusion process of thermoplastic composites. At first, a simple model based on Darcy’s law is provided. In the first model, without considering microscopic impregnating flow, velocity of macroscopic flow and pressure of the molten thermoplastic calculated along the axis of the pultrusion mold. The calculated pressure in the macroscopic flow in the axial direction is combined with Darcy equations in microscopic and macroscopic flow, then the simple equation is obtained to calculate the radial velocity of melted thermoplastic and the radius dimension of the dry region of the fiber agglomeration. This dry region radius shows an estimate of the degree of impregnation. In the second part, a developed model has been proposed. In this model, microscopic flow and the radius changes of agglomeration are considered. Darcy equation is written in two radial microscopic and macroscopic axial direction flows. The perfect equation considering the macroscopic and microscopic flow is proposed. This equation represents the relationship between pressure drops in macroscopic axial and microscopic radial direction and the radius of the dry region and agglomeration radius with other constants. An iterative solution algorithm for solving the developed model is used. Both models for a series of inputs have been calculated. The degree of impregnation and radius of dried fiber region in agglomerations has been calculated.