ABSTRACT Residual stress in carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites during curing causes fiber buckling, matrix cracking, and delamination, limiting engineering applications. This study systematically explores thermal history's influence on residual stress evolution in CFRP curing via theoretical modeling and numerical simulations. A thermo‐mechanical–chemical coupling constitutive model based on continuum thermodynamics is established for the thermosetting resin matrix, describing viscoelastic response, heat transfer, curing kinetics, and their interactions. Total strain is decomposed into viscoelastic, thermal, and chemical components, with an integral viscoelastic model characterizing time‐dependent behaviors. The model validity is verified by comparing simulation results with published literature data. Systematic simulations analyze the effects of high‐temperature dwell temperature, heating and cooling rates, and the number of low‐temperature dwell stages on residual stress. This study reveals that optimizing process parameters to minimize residual stress equals minimizing the difference of the accumulated rate of residual stress between rubbery state and glassy state, which increases the amplitude of decrease of the residual stress range from 79% to 238%. Based on the findings, the optimal parameter combination has been forecast, offering theoretical guidelines for CFRP manufacturing process optimization.
Pei et al. (2026) studied this question.