Abstract: Cap-shaped stiffened composite panels are widely used in the fields of aerospace,energy,traffic,ocean engineering,medical,building,machinery engineering and so on because of its special properties such as high strength,high stiffness to weight ratio and design flexibility. During their manufacturing processes,however,thermo- curing inherently produces the undesired residual stresses and cure deformations,which limits the applications of composite structures in a certain degree. In order to reduce the cure deformation,the effect of curing parameters (curing temperature,curing pressure,cooling rate) on the deformation of composite cap-shaped stiffened composite panels is discussed in this paper. A simple mathematical model based on the curing dynamics is built for the deformation of the cap-shaped stiffened composite panels. The deformation calculated by the mathematical model and experimental results are compared,and an error correction model is established. The error correction model shows a good agreement on the experimental results.

Key words: cure cycle, process-induced deformation, mathematical model