Optimum arrangement of gate and vent locations for RTM process design using a mesh distance-based approach

Resin transfer molding (RTM) is considered a promising manufacturing process for high performance composite materials. In the RTM process, gate/vent location is one of the most important variables in process design. It has a great impact on mold filling time and resin flow pattern, thus affects the process efficiency and product quality. Many studies have been conducted on optimization of RTM mold filling process to determine the locations of gates and vents. Most of them approached the optimum process design problem via numerical method-based process simulations. Due to the extensive computations involved, such approaches are difficult to be implemented for large and complex parts. This paper introduces a new approach to optimum arrangement of gates and vents for two-dimensional or two and a half-dimensional parts based on the mesh distance concept. With the assumption that the resin first fills the nodes closest to gates, the vent locations that minimize the area of trapped air can be determined. With the objective of minimizing the maximum distance between gates and vents and avoiding dry spot formation, genetic algorithm was employed to carry out the gate location optimization. The new RTM process design approach was tested on numerous cases obtained from the literature. It was found that the new approach was very efficient and effective in finding the optimal locations for gates and vents. The resulting gate and vent locations lead to satisfactory process performance as indicated by the optimal process performance index. The computational time required by the new approach was only a fraction of that reported by those simulation-based methods in the literature. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.