Numerical Study on the Resin Transfer Molding Curing Process for Thick Composites Materials Rida Tazi 1 , Adil Echchelh 1 , Mohammed Hattabi 2 , Mohammed El Ganaoui 3 and Aouatif Saad 4,* 1 Laboratory of Materials and Energy, Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco 2 ENSEM, University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco 3 LERMAB/IUT Longwy, Institut Carnot, Nancy, France 4 Advanced Systems Engineering Laboratory, National School of Applied Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco * Corresponding Author: Aouatif Saad. Email: saad.aouatif@uit.ac.ma Received: 15 February 2022 Accepted: 30 March 2022 ABSTRACT The successful manufacture of thick composites is challenging since the highly exothermic nature of thermoset resins and limited temperature control make avoiding the onset of detrimental thermal gradients within the com- posite relatively difficult. This phenomenon is mainly caused by exothermic heat reactions. The so-called Michaud's model has been largely used in the literature to reduce the gap between experience and simulation with regard to the effective prediction of the temperature cycle in these processes. In this work, another solution is proposed to simulate the curing process for thick composites, namely preheating the resin to activate the curing reaction before resin injection into the mold. A good agreement between the experiment and the simulation is found. Moreover, in order to minimize the thermal gradient in the final composite, the thermophysical properties of the fiber and the torque (temperature, time) of the Plate have been varied leading to interesting results. KEYWORDS Resin transfer molding; thick composite; curing; thermal gradient Nomenclature ΔE Activation Energy of a Reaction J/kg, K Thermal Conductivity W/mK, T Absolute Temperature K, C Heat Capacity J/K. 1 Introduction A composite material is by definition a heterogeneous mixture of materials of different natures, fibers and matrix (resin) [1,2]. There are several types of composites, in particular thick composites; these later are used in industrial fields such as the manufacture of submarine hulls or bridge structures. As composite This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: 10.32604/fdmp.2023.021976 ARTICLE ech T Press Science