Analysis of Compression Moulded Composite Components

This paper on "Analysis of Compression Moulded Composite Components" was presented at the 5th International Conference on Reliability of Finite Element Methods for Engineering Applications - 10-12 May 1995, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Summary

When undertaking a finite element analysis of a compression moulded composite component more, and different, problems may be observed than when analysing laminated composite components. Analyses undertaken on components manufactured from compression moulded material have usually assumed that the material was isotropic, and that the mechanical properties were constant throughout the structure. These assumptions are not necessarily correct as the flow of the material during processing will affect the resultant mechanical properties. However information concerning the fibre orientation or distribution caused by the processing of the material may not be available. Recent published work has shown that components manufactured from compression moulded material show significant fibre orientation and concentration in some regions, and suggest that an analysis of the compression moulding process should be performed before a structural analysis of the component. To investigate whether this is necessarily the case experimental data from a glass mat thermoplastic plate is input into a finite element analysis and the results compared to those obtained when assuming constant mechanical properties throughout the plate.