Resin transfer molding (RTM) is a popular manufacturing technique that produces fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. In this paper, a model-assisted flow front control system is developed based on real-time estimation of permeability/porosity ratio using the information acquired by a visualization system. In the proposed control system, a radial basis function (RBF) network meta-model is utilized to predict the position of the future flow front by inputting the injection pressure, the current position of flow front, and the estimated ratio. By conducting optimization based on the meta-model, the value of injection pressure to be implemented at each step is obtained. Moreover, a cascade control structure is established to further improve the control performance. Experiments show that the developed system successfully enhances the performance of flow front control in RTM. Especially, the cascade structure makes the control system robust to model mismatch.
Keywords: cascade control; flow control; meta-model; permeability estimation; polymer composite; resin transfer molding.