Thermoset Additive Manufacturing Simulations
Capturing cure kinetics and developing physics-based predictive simulations. Work in progress.
Overview
Leading an industry-funded project with JuggerBot3D to characterize cure kinetics and develop physics-based simulations for extrusion-deposition additive manufacturing of carbon-fiber-reinforced vinyl ester thermosets.
Physical phenomena governing thermoset extrusion-deposition.
Approach
- Measuring cure kinetics (DSC) for relevant temperature profiles
- Extracting viscoelastic behavior during gelation and post-cure
- Building early-stage cure-shrinkage and residual-stress models
- Designing thermal + rheological validation experiments
Key Results
Work ongoing. Current progress includes preliminary cure models and initial viscoelastic parameter identification.
Impact
Will provide a full physics-based simulation capability for thermoset AM, capturing flow, curing, shrinkage, and residual stresses for process optimization and material development.
Tools
DSC, DMA, rheometer, MATLAB, Python