Pultrusion of thermoplastic composites has been the hotspot of manufacturing high-performance thermoplastic composites in recent years. The optimization of process parameters in the pultrusion usually needed repeated attempts, which wasted lots of manpower and material resources. A numerical simulation method can accelerate the optimization of process parameters. In this work, the impregnation process of reactive injection pultrusion for glass fiber reinforced nylon 6 (GF/PA6) composites was modeled and numerically simulated by a finite element/controlled volume (Fe/CV) method. Based on Darcy's law, the impregnation process can be regarded as the two-phase flow (liquid resin and air) in porous media (undirectional glass fibers). The distribution of resin flow during the impregnation was explored. The effects of pulling rate and injection pressure on the impregnation time and resin reflux distance were analyzed, and the appropriate range of relevant process parameters was determined. The results showed that increasing the pulling rate can significantly control the reflux distance of resin in the impregnation mold and shorten the impregnation time, but too high a pulling rate would increase the impregnation time. Increasing the injection pressure can greatly shorten the resin impregnation time, but it would significantly increase the resin reflux distance. This work can effectively guide the subsequent optimization of process parameters of reactive injection pultrusion for GF/PA6 composites.
Keywords: impregnation; numerical simulation; reactive injection pultrusion; thermoplastic composites.