Modelling race-tracking variability of resin rich zones on 90° composite 2.2 twill fibre curved plate

Continuous fibre reinforced composites are widely used for aerospace, automotive, marine and civil applications due to their light weight and enhanced mechanical properties. The Liquid Composite Moulding (LCM) processes are one of the most common manufacturing routes for composites. The resin flow behaviour during impregnation affected by the preform properties, which are fibres orientation, and textile volume fractions, can vary locally. Local variations induced by moulders’ geometry and fabrics’ architecture are the forming process. Advanced Composites Structures are made of 2D or 3D woven geometrically complex preforms, thus making the impregnation process hard to control and potentially causing defects in the manufacturing of the final component. Industrial experience has shown that during mould filling, due to race-tracking and stochastic variability in the material properties, the filling patterns and arising cycle times are rarely the same between a given set of apparently identical mouldings. Therefore, modeling race-tracking variability of resin rich zones on 90o composite fibre curve plate is a very important issue and presented on this paper.