Thermo-chemical, Mechanical and Resin Flow Integrated Analysis in Pultrusion

The present work discusses some numerical outcomes provided by an integrated analysis of impregnation, thermo-chemical and stress/strain aspects in a conventional pultrusion process. The impregnation models describes resin flow and pressure distribution in the initial portion of the die, solving a non-homogeneous non-isothermal/reactive multiphase problem, using a finite volume scheme. The thermochemical model describes the heat transfer and degree of cure evolution of the processing resin. Finally, the stress/strain model computes the part distortion and in process stresses due to thermal, chemical, mechanical strains. An applicative case study is presented, simulating the impregnation step of the pultrusion process of a fiberglass-epoxy resin composite rod.