Composite manufacturing processes by resin infusion, despite their many benefits, struggle to establish themselves in the industrial production phases due to difficulties to control them. So, in partnership with ESI Group, a comprehensive model for the simulation of these processes is developed at the ENSM-SE since the pioneering work of P. Celle.Our work focuses on the generalization of this model to handle complex industrial cases in three dimensions, as well as its extension to “post-infusion” flow simulation. The approach is based on three domains decomposition of the field (Distribution medium, impregnated preforms, dry preforms) consisting in coupling a Stokes flow in the distribution medium with a Darcy flow in the preforms. In addition, the mutual influence of the resin on the preforms and of the preforms deformation on the permeability is considered, through Terzaghi’s law and models expressing the permeability as a function of the fibre fraction, data only accessible with a 3D coupled mechanical approach. Finally, the process is divided into three phases: initial compression of dry preforms, filling and “post-infusion”. The numerical methods developed in this work, apply to real infusion cases often discarded in recent publications, involving very low permeability (~10-15 m²), thin distribution medium (~ 1 mm) and complex geometries (3D curved).This innovative approach has been implemented in an industrial simulation code (ProFlotTM), validated analytically over test cases and experimentally over industrial cases in the European project INFUCOMP.
