FE analysis and production experience of a sandwich structure component manufactured by means of vacuum assisted resin infusion process

Vacuum assisted resin infusion process (VARI) is a high performance and cost effective manufacturing technology usually applied to produce large structures made of composite materials. In the industrial practice, trial and error approach is usually applied for the definition of injection locations and strategies during VARI processing thus generating a high risk of failure during the early stages of production of a new component. The present article deals with the development and validation of the FE analysis by means of the PAM-RTM code of a ship runway through the definition of a standardized experiment for the characterization of the laminates to obtain reliable permeability data. Indeed the assessment of laminate permeability proprieties (K) during the process is the major concern for reliable FE application: a procedure to obtain these characteristic values with few experimental tests is presented starting initially with a classic characterization at constant fibre volume fraction (Vf) and then extending the approach for the construction of a Pressure–Vf dependant curves. The tests were realized with carbon fibres fabrics, epoxy for infusion resin and PVC perforated core. Moreover the article provides an innovative approach for the computation of sandwich structures when perforated cores are used: the obtained data are finally applied with success for the validation of the simulation of the production phases of the ship runway characterized by the sandwich structure.