Analysis of the temperature distribution in weave-based CFRP during induction heating using a simplified numerical model with a cross-ply representation

Induction heating of carbon fibre reinforced plastics, CFRP, has a great potential within different application areas, such as induction welding and curing of thermosets, due to fast and energy efficient heating. Simulation models can obviously be valuable for example during optimization. This article shows how temperature distribution during induction heating of CFRP based on woven fabric can be simulated using a finite element model with a unidirectional layer representation, thus simplifying the geometry significantly. Electrical and thermal properties were measured and used in the numerical model. The simulated and measured temperature distributions show good agreement, where the prediction of peak temperature is within just a few percent for the plates with a fibre volume fraction above 50% while the same difference is just above 10% percent for the plate with a fibre volume fraction below 40%.