CORRECTIVE OPEN MOLDING FOR THERMOSET COMPOSITE PANELS T. W. Capehart1, Hamid G.

Kia1, and Nouman Muhammad2

General Motors Research & Development Center1 Ricardo-Meda Corporation2 Abstract: Open molded composite (OMC) body panels composed of three distinct layers warp significantly after removal from the mold. The distortion results from lateral stress developed during the cure of the gel coat, the cosmetic layer of the composite panel. This lateral stress, due to chemical shrinkage, develops a bending moment across the panel. This bending distorts the panel, reducing the convexity as viewed from the gel coat side. This work uses a previously constructed finite element model, which calculates panel deformation, to develop and validate an algorithm for calculating an open mold that corrects for this distortion. Starting with a mold duplicating the desired panel shape, an iterative algorithm was implemented that recalculates panel deformation from a series of trial molds. The trial molds are generated by partial inversion of the deformed panels deviation from the desired shape. This algorithm converges and provides a corrective mold mesh that deforms to the desired shape of the panel within numerical precision. Constructing satisfactory surfaces from the corrective mold mesh required several iterations. To produce a Class A surface required a mesh that provided orthogonal sets of contour lines spaced 100 150mm apart. This was accomplished by partitioning the geometric surfaces of the original panel, re-meshing, identifying the boundary node sets, and then constructing contour lines from the corrective mold mesh using the corresponding node sets. The algorithm for corrective open molding depends only on the ability to calculate panel deformation. Consequently, its accuracy depends on the physical properties and thicknesses of the individual composite layers. The twenty to twenty-five percent thickness variations in the fiber reinforced polyester layer of the hand-sprayed OMC panels limit the effectiveness of the corrective mold..

1. Introduction
Open molded composite (OMC) body panels that are the focus of this study are composed of three layers. In this process, a gel coat is sprayed in an open mold and allowed to cure until it becomes tack-free. Then, a layer of barrier coat is applied and allowed to cure to approximately the same extent. In the last step, using a flow chop gun, a layer of glass fiber reinforced polyester laminate is sprayed and allowed sufficient time to cure prior to demolding. Body panels fabricated with this method warp significantly after removal from the mold. The bending of these thin composite panels results from residual stress developed during the cure of the thermoset resins constrained by the mold surface. A static finite element model was previously developed that accurately predicts the equilibrium deformation of automotive body panels fabricated using the OMC resins and processing schedule in open molds.1 In general, directly measured physical properties of the individual composite layers and the choice of the S4R finite element formulation in Abaqus define the model. Gel coat shrinkage was determined to be the primary source of residual stress in the OMC panels and was incorporated into the model using a pseudo-temperature; true thermal stresses were negligible. This is a principal difference between open molding of composites at room temperature and injection molding of thermoplastics at elevated temperatures. A limitation of the model is that the lateral stress developed during resin cure was empirically determined by fitting the observed deformations of initially flat OMC plaques. Direct measurements of chemical shrinkage during cure only provided the model with upper and lower bounds on the lateral stress in the composite layers. Inferring stress from measurements of the chemical shrinkage had a fundamental

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limitation: there is a nonlinear, and difficult to obtain, relation between the lateral stress and shrinkage. Maximum and minimum stress levels were estimated based on shrinkage and general models of the polymerization reaction.2-8 However, the residual stress in the cured film with instantaneous shear modulus Go and Poissons ratio can vary by more than a factor of ten depending on whether the cure is fast,
n 2Go (1 + )cxx ( ) = (1 g oi ) ( f f g ) , (1 ) i =1 U xx

(1)

or slow,

L ( ) = xx

n 2Go (1 + )cxx (1 g oi ) , (1 ) i =1 0.06 0.15 ; 0.9 f 1.0 ; f g = 0.1,

(2)

compared to the viscoelastic relaxation times. In Equations (1) and (2), Uxx and Lxx are the upper and lower bounds on the lateral stress developed during a viscoelastic cure. The chemical shrinkage in the xdirection is Cxx, while the goi are the coefficients in the Prony expansion.5 The final cure fraction of the polymer is f, and the fractional cure at the gel point is fg. is a constant determined by numerical integration for the stated values of f and fg. Normally, Cxx is assumed to be one-third the volumetric shrinkage of the resin CV. For the OMC resins and processing schedule, the assumption of a rapid cure and constant volumetric chemical shrinkage independent of boundary conditions,

xx = yy

cxx (1 2 ) = 2Go (1 g oi )(1 + ) (1 ) 2 , i =1

n

(3)

provided a relatively accurate estimate of the gel coat lateral stress within 10% of the empirically determined value of 3.78 GPa for the nonlinear FEM, if the equilibrium tensile modulus is identified as

E = 2Go (1 g oi )(1 + ).
i =1

(4)

Using the empirically determined chemical shrinkage of the gel coat, the FEM was used to calculate the deformations of a prototype rear door outer panel as shown in Figure 1. For these calculations, the boundary conditions were carefully chosen to provide minimal reaction forces; this set of boundary conditions represents a free standing, unconstrained door. The large distortions along the y- and z-axes predicted for the free standing door outer provided a critical test of the FEM for panels with complex shape. Six rear outer panels were fabricated with altered processing procedures from those used for the OMC plaques. After demolding, their surfaces were profiled using a coordinate measuring machine (CMM). To account for the substantial thickness variations in these panels, the FEM calculation used separate lay-ups for the top, middle and bottom sub-panels based on measured layer thicknesses. Fitting the surface profiles of the panels to the calculated deformation necessitated increasing the gel coat effective shrinkage. This change in the FEM model is attributed to the altered processing conditions used in manufacturing. With this reservation, the shape and magnitude of the calculated FEM deformations were consistent with the distortions observed for these panels validating the model. The process variation in the thickness of individual composite layers represented the principal limit on reproducing the panel warpage.

2. CORRECTIVE MOLDING: INVERSION OF PANEL DEFORMATION

The method developed in this work for calculating a corrective mold starts with a desired, or target, panel geometry, PT, which is used as the initial trial mold profile, Mo. The algorithm, illustrated in Figure 2, assumes that PT has a valid finite element mesh consisting of N nodes each with coordinates xj. It is critical to recognize the dual role of the panel geometry. In the initial iteration, PT defines the starting mold profile,

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M o ( x j ) = PT ( x j )

for j = 1, N ,

(5)

and the target shape for the deformed panel. It should be clear that Mo is composed of the same nodes, elements, properties, and boundary conditions as PT. For subsequent iterations, PT is only the target for panel Pi, which is generated from each node of the trial mold profile Mi-1 and the calculated deformation Di of the node from the FEM using

Pi ( x ' ' j ) = M i 1 ( x ' j + D i ( x ' j ))

; i = 1,..., I .

(6)

The deformations in Eq. (6) are dependent on the physical properties and processing details of the composite panels. It is assumed that the properties and processing of the panels are identical to those found in reference 1. Each subsequent trial mold profile, Mi, is generated by partial inversion of the distortions i, between PT and Pi i ( x ' j ) = x j ( x ' j Di ( x ' j )) (7.a)

M i ( x ' ' j ) = M i 1 ( x ' j i ( x ' j )) .

(7.b)

The calculations represented by Equations (6) and (7) are iterated until the distortions i are all less than a preset numerical limit. For the panels investigated the convergence between corresponding nodes of the final deformed panel mesh Pi and PT was less than 10 m for panels with approximate dimensions of 1m x 1m. In this algorithm, plays a critical role in obtaining convergence. Since is a second rank tensor, an adaptive algorithm could adjust the magnitude of the diagonal and off-diagonal elements, speeding convergence. Although this approach was not thoroughly evaluated, initial attempts did not reduce the number of iterations to compensate for the overhead of the additional computations required. For this reason, was treated as a scalar in these calculations. Convergence was obtained using the Abaqus linear solver in less than 20 iterations using 0.5 <1.0. Convergence was notably slower for values of 0.5, and the algorithm is unstable for > 1.0. In the nomenclature of this paper, deformation refers to the displacement of a node due to an applied or internal stress. Distortion is the difference PT-Pi between corresponding nodes of the target panel PT and the panel Pi, which resulted from the deformation i of the mesh of the trial mold profile Mi-1. From this viewpoint, every trial mold deforms, but for the converged algorithm, the panels are not distorted, i.e., i is approximately equal to zero. Warpage refers to distortion measured by a CMM of a physical OMC panel. The algorithm defined by Equations (5) (7) was implemented by writing a pre- and postprocessor for Abaqus in Mathematica. Mathematica was chosen for the implementation since it provides cross-platform support, the capability to create command line arguments, and excellent graphics. The program is written as a set of nested function calls that are accessible from a Mathematica palette. The program begins by submitting the FEM model input deck for Mo, prepared in Patran, to the Abaqus solver. The program then waits for the solver to write a binary output file containing the nodes and their deformations and terminate normally. The Mathematica post-processor reads the binary output file using a Fortran program compiled with the Abaqus make facility, which provided access to their proprietary database file structure. The deformed panel coordinates P1, the distortions 1, and the first trial mold M1 are then readily calculated. For each iteration, a fringe plot of the deformed panel is displayed. The preprocessor then writes a new Abaqus input file substituting the node coordinates of M1 for Mo, and submits the revised card deck to the solver. After the Abaqus solver terminates, the post-processor routine again reads the node coordinates and deformations, plots the deformed panel, and computes the new mold coordinates. The pre-processor then writes another modified Abaqus input deck. This process is then repeated until the convergence 2002 ABAQUS Users Conference

criterion is met, or the maximum number of iterations is reached. Figure 3 displays the distortion of the freestanding panels produced from Mi, i=0, 2, 4,6, 8, and 10, and illustrates the fairly rapid convergence of the algorithm for the door outer panel. For the tenth mold iteration, the panel distortion is less than 250m for all the nodes. By the twentieth iteration the convergence is within 10m; this is close to the numerical precision of the algorithm. The negligible distortion of the OMC rear door outer panel produced from the corrective mold represents, in theory, a seven order of magnitude improvement from the free standing panel distortions exhibited in Figure 1. While this improvement in dimensional tolerance might simplify joining, it is not directly related to the appearance of the assembled door with the outer panel bonded to the door inner panel. The two panels are adhesively bonded only along the sides and bottom; the top edge of the outer panel is free. The bonded door outer panel was modeled by fixing pairs of nodes around the bonded portion of the perimeter at their fiducial coordinates. As expected, the bonded panel has significantly less distortion than the freestanding panel. The maximum distortion is reduced by a factor of ten to approximately 11mm. However, this distortion is located in a critical region for the appearance of the door; an 11mm gap between the window and outer panel is not acceptable. In principal, the OMC door outer produced from the corrective mold profile completely resolves this problem. The distortion of the bonded panel is negligible (<10m) for a panel produced using the assumed materials, processing schedule, and composite layer thicknesses. However, the ability to control thicknesses in the OMC process is limited since the composite layers are hand-sprayed. Previous measurements of OMC rear door outer panels fabricated by Vezina, a manufacturer of laminated products, found that the standard deviations of the gel coat, barrier coat, and fiber reinforced laminate layer thicknesses were tgc=0.12mm, tbc=0.16mm, tFRP=0.97mm, respectively. These variations have an impact on the potential effectiveness of corrective molding, requiring an analysis of the stability of the panels produced from the corrective mold to variations in layer thickness. Panel stability was investigated by systematically varying the thickness of each layer and calculating the distortion using the FEM. Layer thicknesses, assumed to be tgc=0.5mm for the gel coat, tbc=1.0mm for the barrier coat, and tFRP=2.5mm in the design of the mold profile, were varied over 1.0 to 1.5 standard deviations in increments of 0.1mm. These calculations showed that changes in the tbc had only a small influence on the panel distortion. The primary factors were tgc and tFRP. While the influence of changing tgc by 1 to 2 standard deviations is modest, inspection of the contour lines reveals that a one standard deviation change in tFRP results in a three to four millimeter distortion of the panel. Assuming normally distributed errors, the magnitude of the variation of tFRP limits the improvement in tolerance to a factor of ~2 for 95% of the panels produced. While the stability analysis of the panel deformation placed limits on the effectiveness of corrective molding for the OMC panels, the FEM calculations used for the error analysis also revealed an interesting feature of these molds. Although the corrective mold profile is designed for a specific set of layer thicknesses, undistorted panels can be produced from the same corrective mold profile if the changes in layer thicknesses are correlated. As shown in Figure 4, for tgc and tFRP satisfying the condition

t FRP = 2.1t gc + 1.4 ,

(8)

the panel distortion remains much less than 0.5mm for 0.25 tgc 1.0mm and 1.5 tFRP 3.5mm. Consequently, if the composite layer thicknesses can be accurately controlled the same corrective mold can produce undistorted panels for a variety of lay-ups. In general, the corrective molding program is less tolerant to faults in the input deck than Abaqus. Abaqus accepts unassociated nodes as input but does not write them to the output file. The corrective molding routine tracks the number of nodes and their identification numbers (ID) through the sequence of iterations. If the number of nodes or their IDs differ from the initial input file, the program terminates. This allows sets of nodes along surface edges in the geometry of PT to be re-associated with lines in the final corrective

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mold. This is the first step in constructing a smooth surface geometry for the final corrective mold, an issue addressed in the next section.

3. CORRECTIVE MOLDING: DESIGN AND VALIDATION

Constructing satisfactory surfaces for machining a mold using the corrective mold mesh required several iterations. The problem of mold design starts with the finite element mesh of the corrective mold profile. The goal is to create a smooth Class A surface using the geometric surfaces of the original target panel as a guide in constructing the corrective mold geometry. A display of a shaded image of a panel, as shown in Figure 1(a), is not adequate to determine if a surface is Class A. A more critical analysis of ray traced reflections of lines from a surface is required. This reveals subtle changes in surface curvature that are otherwise difficult to distinguish. Since the mesh of the corrective mold profile has no associated geometry, it can be naively interpreted in two ways. The nodes may be viewed as points in space producing a point cloud, or the elements may be interpreted as quadrilaterals and triangles composing a tessellated surface. Both Unigraphics and Patran support surface construction and smoothing using these approaches; however, neither approach could be employed successfully for the complex shape of the OMC rear door outer. The problem of smoothly joining the various surfaces at their edges without introducing waviness in the interior of the surfaces was never satisfactorily resolved using these approaches. The next attempt was to construct cubic splines between the nodes of the corrective mold profile corresponding to the nodes associated with each surface edge of the target panel. These lines could then be used to form smooth surfaces by extruding and gliding edges. Smooth surfaces, compliant to the corrective mold profile, could be produced over most of the mesh using this procedure. Problems occurred when trying to construct corrective mold surfaces based on the trimmed surfaces of the panel. Only a portion of the required surface could be reconstructed from the trimmed surface boundaries. These open regions required the construction of additional surfaces and smoothing. While this approach permitted the construction of a reasonably smooth mold, the face analysis mode revealed unacceptable flaws. Finally, it was decided to utilize orthogonal sets of design contour lines spaced 100 150mm apart would as construction aids for the mold geometry. This was accomplished by partitioning the geometric surfaces of the original panel using the intersection of the panel surfaces with equally spaced horizontal and vertical planes. Dividing the existing surfaces required creating a new mesh for the panel. This was essential to assure that there would be a set of nodes associated with each surface edge, which was then used to create contour lines on the corrective mold surface. With these contour lines the designers were able to successfully produce Class A surfaces. Using the revised mesh, a corrective mold profile was calculated using tgc=0.5mm, tbc=1.0mm, tFRP=3.5mm, and a gel coat shrinkage of 0.75%. This corrective mold provided a maximum of 17.8mm of correction. Assuming the measured thicknesses of OMC panels previously produced, an average deformation of 28.5mm would be expected.1 Using an FRP layer thickness of 3.5mm in the calculation produced a conservative corrective mold that was expected to leave ~10mm of panel distortion. This was done to prevent any interference that an overcorrected panel might produce. Cubic splines were constructed to form contour lines for the corrective mold mesh using the node sets that were associated with each surface edge in the panel geometry. These splines and the point cloud produced by the nodes were exported to Unigraphics as an initial graphics exchange specification (IGES) file. Using the resulting Unigraphics part file, the final surfaces for the corrective mold were constructed by the designers and machined into a male plug. The male plug was then shipped to a molder to fabricate two female epoxy molds and six OMC rear door outer panels from these corrective molds. After the six OMC rear door outer panels were fabricated using the corrective mold with the standard OMC resins and processing schedule, each door outer panel was profiled using a CMM with a

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previously developed fixture. These profiles were then compared to the shape of the corrective mold and to the desired panel shape, determining the deformation and the warpage. Using this fixture, the maximum warpage occurs at the top and bottom of the panels. The CMM data provided five points along the top of the door panel, and these were used to characterize the maximum deformation. A summary of these results is given in Table I. For comparison, OMC rear door outer panels produced using a conventional panel shaped mold, similar processing and similar fixture in the CMM had an average warpage of 28.56mm. Clearly, the OMC rear door outer panels fabricated from the corrective mold exhibit a significant reduction in warpage. On average, the warpage is reduced by approximately 45%. This should be compared to the 62% reduction anticipated for the mold design. Although the control of layer thicknesses in the OMC panels is poor, hand-spraying does not preclude the use of corrective molding.

4. CONCLUSIONS
A procedure for designing an open mold that produces automotive composite body panels with improved dimensional tolerances has been developed. The algorithm for corrective open molding depends only on the ability to calculate panel deformation. Its accuracy depends on the physical properties and thicknesses of the individual composite layers. Twenty to twenty-five percent variations in the thickness of the OMC fiber reinforced polyester layer produced by hand-spraying limit the effectiveness of the corrective mold. Despite this limitation, the warpage of the OMC panels produced from corrective molds is reduced by almost a factor of two. Dramatic improvements in dimensional tolerances could be achieved by automating the spray operation, which would permit the FRP layer thickness to be accurately controlled, and a corrective mold designed for the intended lay-up, with a minimal bias to prevent overcorrection.

5. References
1. T. W. Capehart and Hamid G. Kia, Deformation of Thermoset Composite Panels, (to be submitted). 2. L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, Theory of Elasticity, 3rd Edition (Pergamon Press, New York, 1986 3. J. Lange, S. Toll, J. E. Manson, and A. Hult, Polymer 38, 809 (1997). 4. J. Lange, S. Toll, and J. E. Manson, Polymer 36, 3135 (1995). 5. M. A. Biot, J. Applied Physics 25, 1385 (1954). 6. D. Adolf and J. E. Martin, J. Comp. Mater. 30, 13 (1996). 7. J. E. Martin, D. Adolf, J. P. Wilcoxon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2620 (1988). 8. D. Adolf, J. E. Martin, and J. P Wilcoxon, Macromolecules 23, 527 (1990).

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Tables
Table I. Maximum deformation and warpage of the panels produced using the corrective mold described in the text. Panel Number Maximum Deformation (mm) 31.36 26.96 33.31 36.64 33.14 30.28 33.51 Maximum Warpage (mm) 13.56 9.16 15.51 18.84 15.34 12.48 15.71 Standard Deviation Warpage (mm) 0.97 0.76 0.31 0.18 0.98 1.38 0.76

2732-51 2732-52 2732-54 2732-56 2732-57 2732-59 Average

Corrective Mold

Average
Conventional Mold

28.56

28.56

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Figures

(a)

(b)

Figure 1. (a) OMC rear door outer panel geometry. (b) The equilibrium y-deformation (mm) calculated using the FEM model of reference 1.

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(a)

(b)

PT Mo M1 P1 M2

M1

PT P2

(c)

(d)

Mi-1 Mi

PT Pi

Corrective Mold MI-1

PT PI

Deformation

Distortion

Mold Correction

Figure 2. (a) In the initial iteration, the panel shape has two roles. It is the starting mold profile, Mo, and the target panel, PT. The displacement between each node in the deformed mesh and the corresponding node in the target panel is calculated to determine the panel distortion. A fraction of the panel distortion is subtracted from the corresponding mold node to produce the first trial corrective mold profile, M1. (b) The second iteration begins with the FEM calculation of the deformation of M1 that produces P1. The panel distortion, PT-P1, is computed for each node, and a fraction of this distortion is subtracted from M1 to give M2. (c) This process is iterated, until (d) the MI-1 corrective mold deforms to within numerical tolerance of PT.

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<0.25

<0.40

< 0.55

<0.7

<0.85

1.00

Distortion

Figure 3. Distortion of panel Pi cast from mold Mi-1 for i=0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. Each finite element node is colored to to indicate the distortion relative to the target shape of the panel. The bottom legend is in millimeters. After 20 iterations the net distortion is less than 10 microns

10

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3.5 3. 3 2.

Net Deformation

1.
tFRP (mm)

2.5

1. 2. 3. 4.

1.5

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

tgc (mm)

Figure 4. Calculated dependence of the maximum distortion of bonded panels cast on a corrective mold to correlated variations in tgc and tFRP. Although the corrective mold was designed for a single lay-up, undistorted panels can be produced by any properly matched combination of tgc and tFRP.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciated initial discussions with Pete Foss at the beginning of this work, and Jan Herbst and Tom Perry during the preparation of this report.

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