Predicting Curing Distortion in Composite Manufacturing—A Fast and Cost-Efficient Numerical Simulation Method

The curing distortion is a critical determinant of the quality of integrally manufactured composite structures, playing a pivotal role in the design and fabrication of composite. This paper presents two simplified methods in predicting the curing distortion for large-scale composite aircraft structures manufactured through the autoclave process. Firstly, the refined finite element models of the two simplified methods were developed. Then, it was utilized to predict the curing distortion of Ω-shaped composite laminates. The comparative study between the experimental data and numerical results shows that the proposed second simplified method balanced the prediction accuracy and efficiency, which is urgently needed in practice. Finally, using the second simplified method, predictions were conducted for the curing distortion of practical large-scale composite skin structures. The results were in good agreement with the corresponding experiments. This study provides a new solution for the rapid iterative design of large-scale composite structures, as well as the efficient design of frame molds for their manufacturing.