Bubble formation and motion in non-crimp fabrics with perturbed bundle geometry

The motion of the liquid front during impregnation of non-crimp fabrics has been considered by using Sethian’s level set method. Particular attention is put on the creation of bubbles at the liquid front and a virtual 3D model mimicking biaxial fabrics has been built for this purpose. The saturated fluid flow is governed by the Navier–Stokes Equations and Darcy law, while capillary pressure has been accounted for at the liquid flow front and continuity maintained. The influence of perturbation in the bundle geometry has been investigated. Local correlations of the dimensions of neighbouring gaps formed between the bundles are of paramount importance. Focus is on inter-bundle bubbles. An existing model for bubble dynamics is used based on a probabilistic approach for bubbles moving, splitting, merging, and dissolving. The same approach was used for intra-bundle bubbles, the difference being that their motion appears to be much slower. The obtained void fractions of inter-bundle bubbles at different vacuum levels applied at the liquid flow front are compared to those from real mouldings with a high degree of conformity.