Numerical and experimental studies of liquid injection molding with preplaced fiber mats

This work presents the results of numerical simulation and experimental visualization of the mold filling process in resin injection molding with preplaced fiber mats. The mold filling experiments were conducted with various mat stacks consisting of continuous random glass fiber mats and bidirectional stitched glass fiber mats. The use of two different mat types in the mat stack created porosity and permeability variations. The effect of these permeability variations was studied by taking flow pressure measurements and observing the progress of the flow front of a non-reactive fluid filling a clear acrylic mold that contained the reinforcement mat stack.; The study also develops 2-D and 3-D computer simulation schemes for the mold filling processes of structural reaction injection molding (SRIM) and resin transfer molding (RTM) under isothermal conditions. The developed computer code was able to simulate the mold filling in molds with complicated geometry and preplaced anisotropic fiber mats. Numerical simulation corresponding to each experiment was also carried out. The numerical results were compared to the experimental measurements.