Numerical and experimental analysis of resin-flow, heat-transfer, and cure in a resin-injection pultrusion process

This paper concerns non-isothermal flow in a thermoset resin-injection pultrusion process. Supported by temperature measurements from an industrial pultrusion line and a material characterisation study (curing kinetics, chemorheology, and permeability), the material flow was analysed for the manufacture of a thick glass-fibre profile saturated with a pultrusion-specific polyurethane resin. A central finding is that the heating configuration, together with the strongly convective flow near inlets resulted in phase transitions that were both concave and convex-shaped. This is different from existing literature that commonly describes curing being initiated from die-walls, resulting in the concave phase-transitions.

Automated summary

This paper investigates non-isothermal flow in a thermoset resin-injection pultrusion process, highlighting phase transitions of both concave and convex shapes due to the heating configuration and convective flow near inlets, which differs from existing literature that commonly describes phase transitions initiated from die-walls.