Full Coupling Modeling on Multi-Physical and Thermal-Fluid-Solid Problems in Composite Autoclave Curing Process.

Abstract

In this study, a multi-physical and thermal-fluid-solid coupling model was developed to simulate the autoclave curing process of composite materials, aiming to explore the influence mechanism of the external flow field on the curing process. First, the extended layerwise method (XLWM) and finite volume method were adopted to simulate the composite laminates and heating airflows, respectively. Then, the thermo-chemical-mechanical-seepage analysis was carried out for the composite laminates. Considering the interaction between the airflows and laminates, a weak coupling method was proposed to solve the thermal-fluid-solid coupling problem, which consists of two parts: unidirectional coupling and bidirectional coupling. In numerical examples, the results of the two coupling schemes were compared, which indicated that the bidirectional coupling scheme consumed fewer computing resources but achieved similar accuracy.