VARTM Variability and Substantiation

Vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM) has the potential advantages of relatively low cost processing with sufficiently high volume fractions of reinforcement and can be readily applied to large-scale structures. However, for many aircraft applications, VARTM does not currently provide sufficient repeatability or control of variability. Such variability is commonly observed when processing with the VARTM process. In order to routinely produce VARTM parts of aircraft quality, the sources of the process variability must be understood and minimized. This paper looks at the various processing steps and their influence on final product quality. Models have been developed to capture the process physics and have been validated via experiments.