PS41 Resin flow monitoring in a VaRTM process integrating stochastic simulation and electrical capacitance measurements

Abstract

Vacuum assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VaRTM) is widely used for molding of composite structures. This paper presents a method to observe resin impregnation in a VaRTM process without embedding sensors into composite structures. The resin flow is estimated by an approach integrating a stochastic simulation of a VaRTM process with values of electrical capacitance measured between pairs of electrodes on a molding tool. This method is based on the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), known as a sequential data assimilation technique. The proposed method was examined by a numerical experiment and it was confirmed that the resin flow front could be estimated.