Analysis of Mold Filling Stage in Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding with Flexible Tools, Considering Resin Injection Tube

Resin transfer molding, that is a sub-branch of liquid composite molding, is one of the manufacturing methods of polymeric composites. Various modification has been presented to improve this process and enhance the product quality. One of the most important modified suggestions is the vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process with flexible tools. Because of the flexibility of tools, resin flow in the mold compact the fiber preform and consequently the thickness of the preform is varied. This phenomenon will affect all process parameters. In order to achieve more actual results and a proper modeling of the mold filling stage, in this article, the governing equations of the molding of a large part incorporating flexibility of tools, gravitational effects, and also friction losses have been solved analyticaly. Then, numerical results have been compared with other models and existing experimental results. It has been shown that neglecting injection tube in modeling of resin transfer molding process with flexible tools has more errors in comparison with RTM process, using traditional molds.