MEEG 455/655 PRINCIPLES OF COMPOSITE

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES
ASSIGNMENT #3
Due: Oct 20th, 2016

1a. Consider a thermoset composite being heated from the two faces by raising
their temperatures to initiate a curing reaction. Sketch the temperature profile
through the thickness (i) at early stage (ii) at steady state

1b Heating of a a thermoplastic composite between two aluminum plates

Consider a glass-polypropylene composite 0.3 cm thick at room temperature

of 25C to be heated by conduction by aluminum platens held at 150C.

1. How long will it take for the mid plane of the glass-polypropylene
composite containing 50% glass fibers to reach 100C?
2. If the composite contained 50% carbon fibers instead of glass fibers, how
long would you wait until the center reaches 125C?
3. If these composites were placed in an oven at 200C, estimate the time it
would take to heat the composite to 175C. Assume the heat transfer
coefficient between the air and the composite is 15 W/mK (For glass and
Carbon properties please check the web/library/text)

2. To check if a resin is shear thinning at room temperature you decide to use a

cone and plate viscometer at different angular velocities and record the Torque.
The radius of the plate is 1 cm and the angle of the cone is 9 degrees (/20).
Below the results are tabulated

Torque (N-m) Angular Speed (rad/s)

Find the two parameters m and power-law index n if one were to use a two
parameter power-law model. Note that this material does have a Newtonian
Plateau at lower shear rates
 3. With the mesh file provided in the resources on Sakai called justblock.dmp in
the Assignment3Files folder, model 1dimensional resin impregnation from left
to right with 55% fiber volume fraction for the preform, 80% porosity for the
distribution media with resin viscosity of 250 cP and a constant inlet pressure of
1 bar, (Note that we have also provided you with a file called jb_dmp2.dmp which
already has the DM attached to it which you can check with your version after you
add the DM to your mesh)
i. Pick values for inplane permeability, Kxx,( usually the values is in the
range of 1010 to 1012 m2) through thickness permeability, Kzz ( range
1012 to 1014 m2 but Kzz is usually at least an order of magnitude less than
Kxx) and distribution media permeability, KDM (range 108 to 109 m2 )
for your LIMS model along with porosity values and obtain the resin
arrival times at the bottom and top region of the part, B(t) and T(t),
respectively, and store them as if they are your experimental data.

ii. Using your simulated experimental data, calculate the Kxx, Kzz and KDM
using the equations provided on your lecture slides (also below) and
record the error in the calculation of your permeability values as
compared with your assigned permeability values in LIMS.

iii. Repeat (ii) for your actual experimental data. On a graph show the
position of the flow front at the top face and the bottom face with time
and use Eq. (14) to report your Kxx, Kzz and KDM values for the fabric
you used in your experiment. Note: use the resin viscosity and fiber
volume fraction for the fabric and DM that you used in the experiment
(Part B of your project)

1. Measure length, thickness and porosity values of the preform and the distribution media to be used.

2. Find time tDM when flow reaches the end of the distribution media on top and time (tl) when it arrives
at the same location(LDM) at the bottom.

3. Calculate effective permeability for distribution media/preform from Eq. (2) using the average of the
top and bottom positions to obtain the average flowfront position L.

4. Find inplane preform permeability value by plotting Eq. (3)(Note: the equation here is correct there
was a typo in your lecture notes for this equation) for times above t1.

5. Evaluate distribution media permeability from Eq.(1).

6. Calculate through the thickness preform permeability from Eq. (4).



4. PEEK resin is a engineering thermoplastic resin that is highly viscous and

exhibits shear thinning behavior. This resin is placed between two circular
disks and squeezed at a constant rate. When the distance between the two
disks is 10 millimeters, the force required is 10,000 N and when the
distance between the disks reduces to 5 mm, the force required is 40,000
N. If you used power law model to describe the behavior of PEEK, what
will be the power law index n for this material based on these two data
points ? (MEEG 655 only)