Numerical investigation of the effect of thermal gradients on curing performance of autoclaved laminates

Autoclave curing process is one of the most frequently used manufacturing techniques of thermosetting composite materials. An efficient curing process requires good understanding of the thermal behavior of molds and composites during autoclave processing. In this paper, the effect of thermal gradients on curing performance of laminates is investigated through numerical approaches. In the first section, a computational fluid dynamics–finite element method numerical model is established to simulate the temperature field and the process-induced deformation of laminates. Then, a curved composite part with two different structures of mold is introduced to exhibit different temperature and degree of cure gradients during the autoclave process. Furthermore, by analyzing the position errors of measurement points, the deformation of the composite parts in different molds is evaluated. The results suggested that more synchronous curing process and less deformation of the composite part can be achieved by reducing the thermal gradients. In this specific case of a curved part, the range of position errors in X direction (the length direction) is reduced by 86.9% with the redesigned mold.