A comprehensive assessment of commercial process simulation software for compression moulding of sheet moulding compound

Abstract

With a growing interest in the application of carbon fibre Sheet Moulding Compound (SMC), a number of commercial software packages have been developed for the simulation of compression moulding of SMC. While these packages adopt different algorithms and meshing strategies, the constitutive material model and processing control are usually adapted from injection moulding process simulation. Little has been done in the literature for assessing the capabilities of these software as design tools, and more importantly, validating the process simulation results using experimental data. This paper aims to provide an independent and comprehensive assessment of existing well-known process simulation software for SMC compression moulding. The selected software will be compared in terms of material models, and available processing settings in order to determine their robustness as a compression moulding design tool. The predictive accuracy of the software will also be assessed by comparing the compression force and filling patterns against the experimental data.