Trench Vartm Molding Technology

In the paper, the resin system suitable for VARTM, compaction of perform, designing the mold for VARTM based on grooves, width, depth and spacing for flow grooves, arrangement of grooves, the mechanics properties of the composite material produced by VARTM and RTM, was studied. A kind of epoxy resin, which is suitable for VARTM, was studied with DSC analysis and viscosity experiments. A viscosity model based on dual -Arrhenius equation was established and could be used to predict viscosity behavior of A1 resin system at different temperature. The surface active energy was calculated by Kissinger method. The referenced curing processing temperature was calculated by Extrapolation, curing temperature is 61-70℃, and post curing temperature is 164-170 ℃.In this paper, compaction of dry and resin-saturated reinforcement was studied. And a model was established to predict the volume fraction of 3D braided perform under deferent pressure. The model was in good agreement with the experimental value.VARTM process based on grooves was studied by experiments. the parameters of width, depth and spacing for flow grooves and spacing for grooves were optimized according on the molding experiments: Width is 5mm,depth is 4mm, spacing for grooves is less than or equal to 70mm. The experiments of perform with deferent thickness show: the mold filling time was decided by thickness when the perform with large thickness. The model of GM (1,1) was established to predict the thickness of composite produced by VARTM. The predict values are in good agreement with the values from experiments.The 3D braided composite material was successfully produced by VARTM. The result shows: VARTM is suitable for producing 3D braided composite.The mechanics properties of deferent composite material produced by VARTM and RTM was studied in this paper. The results show: the mechanics properties of the composite material produced by VARTM are better than the one produced by RTM. The tensile strength of the 3D braided composite material produced by VARTM is better than the others. The results show: VARTM processing can produce composite material with good mechanics properties.