Identification of thermoset resin cure kinetics using DSC and genetic algorithm

Abstract

Resin transfer molding (RTM) is the widely used composite material manufacturing process that produces high-strength and lightweight parts for various industrial applications. In order to manufacture defect-free parts with consistent material properties, it is important to control process parameters throughout the entire volume of the molded part. The main difficulty in the large composite parts manufacturing is unobservability of the state of material during cure process. So, model based control that use coupled models of kinetics resin cure and heat transfer in the cured composite part is the good mean to implement a controllability of RTM process. Due to a variety of newly developed components for thermoset resins used in different aircraft, navy and other industrial applications, the new kinetics models, which can satisfactory describe all stages of the resin phase transformation and evolved exothermal heat, should be developed to synthesis of the proper control law. The highlight of this work is using of genetic algorithm to identify eight parameters of new kinetic equation that was proposed to describe the complicated two stage kinetics curves experimentally obtained at the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) of new thermoset resin developed by Formosa Plastics Co. (Taiwan) for high performance CFRP composites.