Abstract: In this paper, the influence law of permeability change caused by local fiber volume density on the resin flow front has been investigated. Effects of the local permeability on the flow front and the time of resin filling the local region have been simulated using the commercial software RTM-Worx, respectively. For further verification, the corresponding experiments are designed. In the verification experiments, spacers with different thicknesses have been adopted to change the local fiber volume density. And, good agreements between the simulated and the experimental results can be observed. Both simulation and experimental results show that the time of resin filling the local region increases sharply when the local fiber volume density increases to a certain value. And, if the volume density continues increasing, the region will appear incomplete resin filling, resulting in the phenomenon of the final parts with dry spot defects.

Key words: resin transfer molding, fiber volume density, permeability, flow front, dry spot