Integrated Switching and Feedback Control for Mold Filling in Resin Transfer Molding

Two recent advances in controlling flow progression in RTM are the sequential logic control and the optimal feedback control. Both methods have powerful features as well as limitations. However, they complement each other very well. In this paper we propose an integrated control scheme combining both of them. In this paper the theory of the sequential logic control and the optimal control for flow progression manipulation in RTM is reviewed first. An integrated control approach is then proposed. Simulation results show that the control authority of the system is considerably expanded by the combination of the two. The integrated switching and feedback controller gives excellent performance of mold filling even in the presence of wide variations of the preform properties.