%0 Journal Article %A Samir, Jamal %A Echaabi, Jamal %A Hattabi, Mohamed %D 2011 %I Begell House %K resin transfer molding (RTM), control volume/finite element method (CV/FEM), porous media, flow simulation, thickness variation %N 9 %P 833-845 %R 10.1615/JPorMedia.v14.i9.80 %T A NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE RESIN TRANSFER MOLDING WITH VARIABLE THICKNESS OF REINFORCEMENT %U https://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/49dcde6d4c0809db,7d7c3cda4ccc4428,48ebb511265dbb15.html %V 14 %X The present study presents a numerical simulation of isothermal filling of the mold in resin transfer molding (RTM process). A finite element method coupled with control volume (CV/FEM) and volume of fluid (VOF) has been used. For the discretization of the calculation domain in FEM (finite element method), we developed, within our laboratory, a mesh generator which allows the discretization of the field in unstructured triangular elements with the possibility of local refinement and inclusion of inserts. The simulation permitted us to take into account the presence of the inserts coupled with the effect of the variation of the thickness and the multilayer reinforcements. The developed numerical code aims at optimizing the molding parameters such as the positioning of the points of injection and vents and determining the optimal pressures of injection to minimize the cycle of times. This simulation provides useful information about the mold filling to design an optimum mold and make the RTM process more efficient. The results obtained are compared to analytical and experimental results from the literature and a good concordance is obtained. %8 2011-10-04