SIMULATION-BASED DESIGN OF SHEET MOLDING COMPOUND (SMC) COMPRESSION MOLDING

The design of molding tool and molding cycle for sheet molding compounds (SMC) is often expensive and time consuming. Computer simulation of the compression molding process is a desirable approach to reduce experimental prototypes. The focus of this work is to develop an automatic optimization scheme utilizing an earlier developed SMC process simulation program which is capable of simulating material flow, heat transfer, and curing. The proposed scheme reduces computing time by using approximate responses, instead of actual simulated responses, to perform the optimization. The automated optimization package minimizes user intervention during optimal design by creating an automatic link between the optimization and simulation routines. A 2-level factorial design com bined with regression analysis is adopted to gather and analyze computed information, and to serve as the approximation formula. Two examples are presented to test the applicability of the optimization scheme.