Stochastic analysis of isothermal cure of resin systems

Curing of catalyzed resin systems is an important and critical processing step in the fabrication of reinforced thermosetting composite materials. Strong uncertainties inherent in the associated process and material parameters, however, pose a stiff challenge to robust commercial manufacturing of quality composites in practice. Although deterministic models have been developed over the years to simulate the cure process, analysis of the effects of the parameter uncertainties on the process performance and the product quality variabilities has been the subject of little attention, and forms the focus of this study. This paper presents a methodology for a systematic analysis of the effects of the process and material parameter uncertainties on the isothermal curing of thermosetting resin systems. A stochastic model is developed, and parameteric studies are presented to systematically examine the effects of the uncertainties in the processing temperature and the kinetic parameters on the process output variabilities. Optimum parameter spaces that minimize the variance of the output parameters are identified, as a first step towards robust manufacturing of composites.