Carbon Fiber Sucker Rod Pultrusion Process Numerical Simulation Study

Carbon fiber sucker rod is a new type of flexible sucker rod, which uses unsaturated resin as matrix and carbon fiber as reinforcement material. Under high temperature, the resin gradually cures and solidifies to form a polymer composite in the pultrusion die. Pultrusion is one of the simplest and the most cost-effective methods by which polymer composites can be manufactured. It is very important for getting high qualify composites to use reasonable pultrusion processing parameters. Among the various variables in a pultrusion process, of particular interest are the temperature profiles and the degree of cure profiles in the part during pultrusion die. In this study, others research work about the theory of heat transfer and cure react kinetic in the pultrusion die are analyzed and compared, and then a mathematical model accounted for heat transfer and cure react kinetic are established which is suit for carbon fiber sucker rod.The mathematical equations for heat transfer and the resin cure reaction during pultrusion are analyzed through numerical method and find that the temperature and degree of cure in the pultrusion die are strongly coupled together. Equations for heat transfer and the resin cure reaction are changed through the virtual work displacement theory. A computer simulation code has been developed for heat transfer and the resin cure reaction of carbon fiber sucker rod in the pultrusion die. It is based on finite element package IFEPG and Fortran .This computer program is then used to predict the profile of temperature and degree of cure. The corelation about degree of cure profiles and temperature of composites in the pultrusion die is discussed.The computer program can give the value of degree of cure and temperature of composite in pultrusion die .The results is shown by the forms of nephogram, plot, and animation. If the resin kinetic parameters and the thermal properties of the composite materials are given, the conversion profile and temperature profile ofdifferent shape composites in pultrusion process can be calculated.The effects of processing parameters including pulling speed, die wall temperature, die thickness and initial conditions on the profile of degree of cure and temperature in the die is discussed. It is shown that the higher temperature is helpful for getting high conversion, while the higher temperature is easy to lead residue stress of composites. When the pulling speed decreased the maximum temperature curve of the die was moved to the entrance, and the conversion profile curve was moved to the entrance of the pultrusion die. The conversion increase with a decrease in pulling speed was explicit.The effects of the heat generated by exothermic resin reaction on the distribution of degree of cure and temperature in die are discussed. It is shown that the heat generated by exothermic resin reaction can not be neglected.The theoretical prediction values are compared with the values calculated by PulModel. It is found that the predicted values are in good agreement with PulModel.In this paper, the computer simulation code have been developed and can be used to predict the temperature profile and conversion profile in pultrusion die and to provide useful information for pultrusion design. The results of simulation can tailor the process)...