Permeability Identification of a Reference Specimen Using an Inverse Method

The simulation of a resin flow through a porous medium by FE-models has become a very important aspect for the design of a high-performance RTM produced composite part. The key parameters to perform RTM flow simulations are the permeability values of the fiber reinforcement. The measurement of this material parameter is still not standardized and thus many different set-ups have been proposed. This paper presents an inverse method, or a so-called mixed numerical/experimental technique, for the identification of the permeability values. In this iterative inverse technique an experimental observation on a highly automated central injection rig, called “PIERS set-up”, is compared with a computed observation using a numerical model that simulates exactly the same experiment. In this model the permeability values will appear as parameters which will be iteratively tuned in such a way that the computed observation matches the experiment. The inverse method combined with the PIERS set-up assures a fast and accurate identification of the permeabilities.