A numerical methodology for permeability determination of reinforcements for polymeric composites

Abstract

This work focus on developing a numerical methodology for the determination of permeability of RTM reinforcements. The method allows the calculation of the three permeability components (Kxx, Kyy and Kzz) from a set of time dependent flow front coordinates data; one coordinate for each permeability component. An initial guess is set for the permeabilities and the difference between numerical and experimental values of flow front position at a specific time is minimized with the solution of an algebraic system of equations. Newton-Raphson method was used to solve the non-linear system of equations. The results presented in this paper were obtained for a rectilinear (1D) and a radial 2D problem, both with analytical solutions for the flow front position as a function of time. For the 1D comparison between the numerically calculated Kxx and the analytical value agreed within 1.7% and, for the 2D radial problem, numerical and analytical values of Kxx and Kyy agreed within 1.3%.