A novel reinforcement characterization framework for liquid composite molding processes

Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) processes are widely used manufacturing techniques in many industries including, aerospace, automotive, and marine. In order to create quality parts using LCM processes, reinforcement characterization such as, permeability and compaction response need to be performed fast and accurately. In this work, we propose an experimental and numerical reinforcement compaction and permeability characterization framework which can potentially reduce manufacturing cost by lowering material consumption and labor time and effort. The framework is non-destructive in nature, which uses in-situ X-ray micro computed tomography (XCT) experimental set-up to obtain reinforcement compaction response at different fiber volume fractions. In the numerical step, the preform permeability is predicted through computer simulations using computational unit cells extracted from the reconstructed 3D models from XCT scans. The proposed approach has the capability of obtaining a plethora of information about the preform including, compaction response, statistical measurements of the internal preform geometry, and voxel models for numerical simulations. The methodology has been successfully demonstrated using a 3D angle interlock fabric. The method has been validated by comparing the computed permeability values with benchmark experimental data with excellent agreement.