Infusion and in-situ consolidation
Two ways to skip prepreg's separate cure. Infusion: AFP lays dry fibre, then vacuum pulls resin through it. The physics is Darcy's law, and it has a sting: fill time grows with the square of the flow length, and wherever flow fronts close around a slow region, the air is trapped and a dry spot is left.
Predict · at 1:16 in the video
Here's a panel: resin in on the left, vacuum on the right, and a patch of tighter fabric in the middle. Where does it end up dry?
The resin goes around the patch faster than through it. The two fronts meet behind it, and the air inside has no path left to the vacuum. It's trapped.
Automated Fiber Placement: Status, Challenges, and Evolution, Ramy Harik & Alex Brasington.
- Chapter 7, section 1.3
- Chapter 7, section 1.4
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Where the numbers are invented to show a mechanism, the video says so on screen.
