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- Olsson, Jimmy, et al.
(author)
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Flow and heat transfer inside an autoclave
- 2012
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In: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Flow Processing in Composite Materials.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This work, that involves both experiments and numerical simulations, concerns autoclave molding. An autoclave is basically a pressure vessel, where the entrapped and often highly compressed gas is heated and circulated in order to heat the components that have been placed inside the vessel. In the autoclaveprocess, the desirable state would be that an even and optimal temperature existed in the whole part that is manufactured. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. All in all we need to get a better understanding of the flow inside an autoclave and the convective heat transfer from the heated gas to the composite components. In this work we have therefore investigated the flow behavior by performing qualitative measurements with particle image velocimetry inside an autoclave. The concept is to dope the gas within the autoclave with smoke and illuminate the smoke with a thin sheet of laser light. Captured images of the moving smoke are then cross correlated to give velocity fields. We have also investigated the heat transfer to the tool by measuring the temperature at multiple locations during heating. The obtained velocity field is used to produce inlet condition for the simulations, performed with Computational Fluid Dynamics, which subsequently are compared with the experimentally obtained tool temperature. The simulation technique may then be used to optimize both the tools, and the actual location of the tools inside the autoclave in order to improve quality and reduce costs.
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