Modelagem e simulação numérica do processo de moldagem por transferência de resina assistida a vácuo na indústria eólica.

Abstract

This work aims to study the flow of a fluid in a porous (fibrous) medium during the Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) process using the commercial software Ansys Fluent which is a CFD numerical simulation program that solves behavior and fluid flow problems through numerical methods based on finite volumes. Experimental data was carried out, using the Biax 1200 fiberglass fabric, which has an orientation of its wefts at 80º. The chosen material was impregnated with vacuum pump oil by radial injection on an experiment table built for the test. Several experiments at the same coditions were developed in order to observe the effect of the flow behavior and to gather accurate information for the calculation of permeability based on the Hirt and Adams method. With this data, Ansys-Fluent was configured using the Darcy equation, and numerical analyzes were made for all experimental cases. Results of porosity, permeability and variation of the volumetric fraction of the present phases are presented and analyzed. In the end, there was an excellent agreement between the numerical and experimental results (maximum difference less than 5%).