Design for ‘X’-abilities of RTM Products - A Graph Theoretic Approach

The resin transfer molding (RTM) process has been widely accepted for fabricating automobile, aircraft, and spacecraft components with high strength and stiffness to weight ratios of the composite products. This process is widely acceptable in various industries, i.e., wherever low manufacturing cost with high mass production is required compared to other processes like compression molding and hand lay-up.

Designing the composite products requires a lot of skill with multidisciplinary knowledge. Considering the design and the manufacturing strategies as well as the product development, every aspect of the design is to be considered in a single approach without losing any information. The present approach gives a new methodology for combining all the design aspects together in concurrent design methodology, which finally leads to the achievement of the six-sigma limits i.e., almost defect-free products from the RTM technology.

The present paper utilizes the advantages of the graph theoretic approach to considering all the design aspects together in a single methodology with the help of matrix algebra and permanents. It is basically a virtual design methodology, which decides the process, the product strength, and the weakness with the help of a multinomial defined by using the matrix algebra.

The design index, developed using the proposed methodology, really decides if the overall design is acceptable or not by considering all the aspects of the design related to the product, process, environment, etc. Finally, a step-by-step procedure is proposed to help generate a new algorithm for software coding.