Fundamentals of VARTM

The resin flow within the distribution medium layer and fiber preform can be treated as flow through anisotropic porous media and described by the generalized Darcy s law  

Combining Eqs. [10.1] and [10.2] for a resin saturated porous medium, one obtains  

By specifying the boundary conditions of the pressure for the resin filled porous medium domain, the pressure distribution inside the resin filled porous medium domain can be solved by using Eq. [10.3], Then the Darcy velocity (mq ) distribution in the resin saturated porous medium domain can be solved by using Eq. [10.1]. 

During the mold filling process, the resin flow front is indeed a moving boundary. At the resin flow front, there are two significant velocities, that is, the Darcy velocity and the flow front velocity Wp. The flow front velocity is the phase-volume averaged velocity of the liquid resin (with respect 

In the saturated region, the resin flow is simply along the longitudinal direction in both the flow distribution medium layer and the fiber preform. In the flow front region, the resin flow is more complex and couples the effects from the through-thickness resin flow (the major resin flow), the inplane resin flow supplied from the saturated region (the minor resin flow) and the fact that the resin flow front shape actually remains unchanged 

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