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Originally from Ottawa, Canada, Jim Gilbert studied chemistry and physics as an undergraduate student, giving him a background in pure science. However wanting to put his knowledge in practical everyday applications led him to the field of materials engineering, and in particular composites. Jim enrolled in KU Leuven which has had a strong presence in the field of composites research for many years with its Composites Research Group<\/a>.\u00a0 For his thesis,\u00a0he worked closely with our Siemens team in Leuven which has had a long-standing relationship with KU Leuven and relied heavily on\u00a0Simcenter 3D<\/a>\u00a0for simulation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thermoset composites as their very name indicate receive their rigid structural properties when they are cured in an autoclave (check out this article on composites manufacturing<\/a>\u00a0for more info), however during this manufacturing process often cure-induced deformations occur that adversely affect the performance of these structures either by distorting the final shape or affecting the overall service life by reducing the maximum tolerable load.<\/span><\/p>\n Jim\u2019s project was to predict and account for these distortions and by doing so move\u00a0composites curing from an art form to more of a science. The way he did this was to perform numerical simulations with Simcenter 3D and in particular our Samcef solver<\/a>. His approach was to simulate the distortion in a two-step methodology.<\/p>\n The first step was to simulate the thermal curing simulation and the second step was a mechanical simulation where the cured part was subject to different load cases.<\/p>\n To be able to predict the thermal distortions Jim chose to correlate widely available experimental data on fast-curing aerospace-grade resins and slow-curing automotive-grade resins with numerical simulations. The details of his correlation are available in his presentation below but what he found was that there was a good correlation, enough to validate that his approach was valid.<\/p>\n One of the keys to achieving this correlation was the ability to take theoretical models and put them into the software. This was one of the key aspects of why Simcenter 3D and Samcef, in particular, was so useful to him, the ease of use with which he could input specific cure laws (such as this<\/a>) that help the design and fabrication of composites. This was all the more so given his relative inexperience with Simcenter 3D.<\/p>\n As Jim was quick to point out, the results he received were only preliminary, but given more time he could probably have achieved a closer correlation. But what is without a doubt is his approach, which is that a key method for eliminating distortions in composites curing is to first simulate its manufacture and account for these distortions. The implications for industry are clear, in that this can take smaller-scale “artistic” production into industrial-scale predictable production.<\/p>\n![\"Curing](\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/09\/curing-results.png\")