A three-dimensional viscoelastic analysis of thermoplastic resin matrix composite laminates during hot stamping

Abstract In this paper, a three-dimensional thermo-viscoelastic constitutive equation is used to simulate and analyze the hot stamping process of thermoplastic resin matrix composites. Dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) was used to measure the relaxation behavior of resin matrix at different temperatures. Then, the relaxation times and the weight factors of the resin matrix were obtained by regression analysis of the data of the resin matrix relaxation behavior using genetic intelligent algorithm. According to the classical Maxwell model with N Maxwell elements and representative volume element (RVE), the integral constitutive model was established, and the corresponding integral finite element program was incorporated into commercial software ABAQUS with an UMAT subroutine.Thermal expansion was also taken into account in the present model. The constitutive model and its finite element program in this paper were verified by experiments with a self-designed hot stamping die for thermoplastic composites.In addition, the simulation results were compared with the actual failure areas to further verify the applicability of the constitutive model adopted in this paper. The results indicate that the ball edge of the hemispherical part is easy to be damaged.