Design and simulation of large composite material curing oven based on flow field uniformity

The uniformity of the flow field inside a large composite material curing oven directly affects the curing quality of thermosetting resin composite parts. To improve the curing effect within the curing oven, this paper establishes a model of a large composite material curing oven including cured parts, based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) theory. The simulation study focuses on how the curing oven’s internal flow field is affected by the air supply method, the number of air supply inlets, the number of cured pieces, and their spatial layout within the oven. The results indicate that the top supply and bottom return air supply method generally outperforms the side supply and side return air supply method in terms of velocity field uniformity and temperature field uniformity. When the number of air supply inlets is 5, the velocity field and temperature field within the curing oven exhibit better performance. As the number of cured parts increases, the air velocity and temperature inside the curing oven decrease, and the uniformity of the velocity field and temperature field will weaken. The temperature field and velocity field inside the curing oven operate exceptionally well when the cured pieces are positioned in a "triangular" pattern. The experimental results show that the maximum temperature error between simulation data and experimental data is 4.2 ℃, which is within a reasonable range. This proves that the simulation results are reliable and can provide a reference for design work.