Probabilistic analysis of a thermosetting pultrusion process

In the present study, the effects of uncertainties in the material properties of the processing composite material and the resin kinetic parameters, as well as process parameters such as pulling speed and inlet temperature, on product quality (exit degree of cure) are investigated for a pultrusion process. A new application for the probabilistic analysis of the pultrusion process is introduced using the response surface method (RSM). The results obtained from the RSM are validated by employing the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) with Latin hypercube sampling technique. According to the results obtained from both methods, the variations in the activation energy as well as the density of the resin are found to have a relatively stronger influence on the centerline degree of cure at the exit. Moreover, different execution strategies are examined for the MCS to investigate their effects on the accuracy of the random output parameter.