Warpage modelling of carbon fibre reinforced SMC components in automotive applications

This paper presents a finite element-based warpage simulation method for carbon fibre-reinforced SMC (C-SMC) components for automotive application. In the SMC process, one of the main problems is dimensional distortion of the composite component which is an inherent response of the residual stresses that occur due to chemical and thermal shrinkage of the thermoset resin. To tackle this problem, the curing and cooling behaviour of the composite needs to be predicted in a warpage analysis. For this purpose, material characterization is performed to obtain the thermal and chemical properties, and to parametrize the material models for cure kinetics and time- and temperature-dependent resin modulus.
Additionally, material properties of the resin in the glassy and rubbery state, the mechanical properties of the fibres and the fibre volume content are required as input in the thermo-mechanical simulation of warpage in Abaqus. In conjunction with the mapped fibre orientation distributions from the SMC process simulation, local homogenization of the aforementioned properties is performed to correctly define the material behaviour during warpage. ... mehrThe warpage of complex automotive composite structure is analysed and a comparison between the experimentally measured and the numerically predicted displacement field is provided.