Permeability prediction of plain woven fabric by using control volume finite element method

검사체적 방법을 이용한 평직의 투과율 계수 예측

The accurate permeability for preform is critical to model and design the impregnation of fluid resin in the composite manufacturing process. In this study, the in-plane and transverse permeability for a woven fabric are predicted numerically through the coupled flow model which combines microscopic with macroscopic flow. The microscopic and macroscopic flow which are flows within the micro-unit and macro-unit cell, respectively, are calculated by using 3-D CVFEM(control volume finite element method). To avoid checker-board pressure field and improve the efficiency on numerical computation, A new interpolation function for velocity is proposed on the basis of analytic solutions. The permeability of plain woven fabric is measured through unidirectional flow experiment and compared with the permeability calculated numerically. Based on the good agreement of the results, the relationships between the permeability and the structures of preform such as the fiber volume fraction and stacking effect can be understood. The reverse and the simple stacking are taken in account. Unlike past literatures, this study is based on more realistic unit cell and the improved prediction of permeability can be achieved. It is observed that in-plane flow is more dominant than transverse flow in the real flow through preform and the stacking effect of multi-layered preform is negligible. Consequently, the proposed coupled flow model can be applied to modeling of real composite materials processing.