Center for Composite Materials
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Workflow / 03.4 Processing

Connect design intent to
process behavior.

Solve steady-state or transient through-thickness process response before structural analysis, using effective ply transport properties, independent top and bottom schedules, cure exotherm, cure-dependent modulus, polymer kinetics, water uptake or release, and process-cycle optimization.

Read time and travel distance
0501001502000204060Boundary temperature (°C)Time (min)

Cursor: 30 min · 300 mm · 120.0 °C

Teaching illustration only. Controls change this diagram, not your database or Workbench simulation. Distance = speed × time at constant speed; the boundary schedule is not a solved core-temperature or cure field.

03.4 / Workflow focus

Connected engineering record
01

Independent boundary schedules

Thermal and moisture loads each need compatible material properties, a laminate, initial conditions and their own surface schedule.

02

Thermal and moisture formulations

Choose the steady or transient transport model for the study. Transient histories resolve the supported one-dimensional through-thickness problem.

03

Cure, crystallization and UV

Assigned calibrated material laws govern supported polymer-state calculations. UV cure needs its exposure inputs; pultrusion needs the distance/time relationship and pulling speed.

04

Supported coupling

A process schedule alone is not a solved history. Only compatible coupled analyses consume recovered environmental fields; reference-elastic studies remain separate.

05

Tool-release shape

The separate free-release CLT study uses prescribed temperatures and effective shrinkage. It is not a tool-contact simulation or an automatic transfer of the thermal cure history.

06

Process optimization

Compare bounded cycle candidates under supported objectives, save the validation data and rerun the selected candidate.

Use this workflow in Workbench: interactive Blocks, record selections and connection controls →

Connected model layer

Processing · released model connections

Select a model family to follow its inputs, results, theory and exercise. All model families ↗

Follow the connections

Heat, moisture & manufacturing

01 · Inputs

Material laws & boundary cycles

Calibrated kinetics, modulus or transport laws and material assignment

02 · Choose a model family

Transport & reaction

03 · Results / handoff

History & compatible process fields

Material laws consumed by compatible Micro or transport calculations

Cure, crystallization & material transport

Independent model records can be linked together through material inputs. A saved model must be assigned to a material before it contributes to a simulation.

Model choices and Workbench location

Models → material-model folders · assigned through Materials

  • Kamal–Sourour autocatalytic
  • Kamal–Sourour with diffusion control
  • Nth-order Arrhenius
  • CHILE (degree of cure)
  • UV intensity-dependent cure
  • Nakamura–Avrami
  • Temperature-dependent tabular
  • 1D Fickian diffusion
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