• Date：Jun 13, 2018 - Jun 14, 2018
• Location： Suburban Collection Showplace Novi, MI
• Official Website：https://www.compositesovermolding.com/

Join Us at the Composites Overmolding Conference 2018

Explore Cutting-edge CAE Technologies for Advanced Composites Manufacturing

CoreTech System (Moldex3D) will be attending and speaking at the Composites Overmolding Conference 2018, June 13-14, 2018,  at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, MI. The Composites Overmolding Conference sessions will cover all aspects of composites overmolding, including Materials, Machinery, Design & Simulation and Tool & Molds. 

Moldex3D will be speaking on “CAE Approach to Advanced Composites’ Manufacturing Solutions.” In this session, we will discuss how computer aided engineering (CAE) simulation tool enables manufacturers to predict material behavior and to optimize part performance in the molding process. We will also present case studies to demonstrate how simulation can serve as a cost-effective analysis tool for advanced composites’ manufacturing. If you are interested in attending this event and would like to speak to us please complete the form and we will be in touch.

Attend Moldex3D’s Speaking Session 

CAE Approach to Advanced Composites’ Manufacturing Solutions

Date: Wednesday June 13th, 2018

Time: 1:30 – 2:00 PM 

Location: Suburban Collection Showplace, Novi, MI

Session description:

Composite materials provide improved part performance in a wide variety of applications. Today, a lot of focus is being placed on developing and/or improving manufacturing processes such as Compression Molding (CM) and Resin Transfer Molding (RTM). Latest advancements in simulation technology allow for such advanced manufacturing processes to be simulated accurately, thus creating a “closed-loop” integrated workflow to study material behavior and part performance. In this work, case studies are used to demonstrate simulation advancements in providing a cost-effective analysis tool for advanced composites’ manufacturing.

A computer aided engineering (CAE) simulation tool enables manufacturers to predict material behavior and to optimize part performance in the molding process. It is used to avoid expensive and time consuming trial-and-error procedures in manufacturing. By taking advantage of the simulation specialties of Moldex3D in fluid mechanics and LS-DYNA in solid mechanics, respectively, Moldex3D is integrated with LS-DYNA for analyses of CM and RTM processes. In the integration analysis, LS-DYNA is used for the deformation analysis of charge / fiber mat at the solid-like stage of the molding process, such as the compression simulation of thin sheet compounds in CM and draping simulation of fiber mat in RTM.

Figure 1 exhibits a sample result of compression molding in the integration analysis. The initial temperatures of molds and charge are 100°C and 300°C, respectively. The system is simulated by LS-DYNA with air cooling analysis before the compression at the first stage, and there follows with the compression analysis under gravity consideration at the next stage. Figure 1(a) and Figure 1(b) illustrate the temperature distributions after the air cooling stage and the compressing stage, respectively. The final mesh geometry and temperature distribution of the charge is imported as initial conditions into Moldex3D for subsequent filling analysis in the molding. The melt front time after the simulation is depicted in Figure 1(c), and the final deformation warpage is shown in Figure 1(d).

An important issue in RTM is the influence of fiber angle variation during draping process (by LS-DYNA) on the permeability behavior during filling process (by Moldex3D). The increasing shear angle of fiber mat results in the decrease of fabric porosity, leading to the decrease of permeability in the filling process. Figure 2 illustrates the significance of the shear effect in the molding.

Figure 1. Moldex3D & LS-DYNA integrated simulation results for compression molding process.

Figure 2. Shear effect in the resin transfer molding.