Meshless methods with application to Liquid Composite Molding simulation

This paper focuses on the description and analysis of a method and its application for simulating the mold filling process in Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) within an updated Lagrangian framework. For this purpose, we have employed a well established meshless technique known as Natural Element Method (NEM). This technique presents some advantages over finite element simulations, such as no remeshing requirements and the fact that the interpolation accuracy is not significantly affected by the nodal distribution. The use of a meshless technique in RTM allows avoiding the numerical difficulties associated to the fluid properties transport through the whole domain in fixed mesh simulations. The position of the flow front or the geometry of the fluid domain is handled by invoking the geometrical concept of the a-shape of the cloud of nodes, using new strategies to negotiate the position, forms and evolution of the flow front advance. The paper includes some examples that illustrate the potential of the method. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.