Abstract: The experiment of preparing preforms with the advanced pultrusion (ADP) principle prototype of hat beam was studied. The influencing factors of the molding quality of the preforms include the surface shape of the preforming mold, the preforming temperature, the tension, etc. Among them, the unreasonable design of the mold surface shape would affect the temperature uniformity and the tension transmission. Combined with the material properties of M21 prepreg, a model was established in ABAQUS to simulate the preforming process, and the simulation results of laminate deformation are basically consistent with the actual test, which verified the reliability of the elastic parameters and boundary conditions. The deformed prepreg laminate node coordinates was imported into CATIA through the GSD_PointSpline-LoftFrom-Excel macro command in the CATIA folder, and generative shape design was used to reconstruct the surface shape of the mold. The pre-forming simulation test was repeated after mold optimization. The research results show that using this method to reconstruct the surface shape of the mold improves the adhesion between the prepreg and the mold, and the envelope volume of the overhead gap is reduced to 2.6% of the gap before optimization, which can improve the pre-forming process. The temperature uniformity of the prepreg is improved, which can facilitate the sliding movement between the prepreg layers and reduce the occurrence of defects in the preform.

Key words: composites, advanced pultrusion, hat beam, prepreg, preforming mold, adhesion