Research on Temperature Field Distribution in a Frame Mold during Autoclave Process

The success of an autoclave process is related to the temperature characteristics of the mold. An inhomogeneous temperature field in the mold affects the quality of composite parts, which may lead to residual stress, voids, and other manufacturing defects of composite parts. In order to meet high-quality production demands, the temperature field in a mold should be investigated precisely. The temperature distribution in a large frame mold is critically evaluated in this work. Then, a method to control the temperature distribution in a large frame mold is proposed. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the autoclave process is developed to predict the temperature evolution of the large frame mold. The model is validated by experimental results, which shows good agreement with a relative difference of 5.92%. The validated CFD model is then applied to analyze the temperature distribution characters in the mold with different control conditions. The results show that the temperature difference decreases by 13.3% when the mold placement angle is changed from 180 to 168°.