An investigation of the thermomechanical behavior of fiber reinforced composite parts will be conducted. The objective of the project is to continue research in modeling, analysis and process simulation of the thermomechanical behavior of fiber reinforced thermoset parts. Such a study will increase the understanding of the phenomena and the physics behind shrinkage, warpage and surface waviness of reinforced plastic parts. The project will be divided into two portions: and experimental and a computer modeling portion. The experimental aspect of the research deals with thermomechanical material properties characterization. Here, the effect that degree of cure has on the elastic constants and on shrinkage during solidification will be studied. In the second portion of the project the shrinkage due to cure will be introduced and a constitutive model for the material tensor will be developed and implemented into existing finite element computer simulations of the thermomechanical processes that take place during molding of thin and thick fiber reinforced thermoset parts. The simulation considers parts of complex geometry molded under realistic industrial processing conditions. Understanding the thermomechanical behavior of plastics and being able to predict filling patterns, fiber orientation, temperature fields during cure, residual stresses, voids and cracks, shrinkage, warpage and surface waviness before a part is actually manufactured leads to higher part quality and eliminates some of the expensive and time consuming tasks done in the early stages of part and mold design.
