Fabrication and numerical analysis of glass fiber reinforced composite air manifold under vibration loading

The purpose of this article is to remove one of the limitations of manufacturing and production of industrial specimens, which is employing a thermoset polymer-based composite as an alternative material in the construction of a motorcycle part (air manifold). It should be noted that the existing parts are produced using polyamide materials reinforced along with glass fibers. The mentioned limitation means that there are not enough order circulations to start production, and therefore there is no financial ability to make steel molds for plastic injection, which is not the case in thermoset composites, and relatively complex parts can be molded with silicone molds. As a result, in this article the types of thermoset polymers were investigated and considering the mechanical and thermal properties required to production this part, Novolac Epoxy-based Vinyl Ester resin was selected and to strengthen the resin, various reinforcing additives suitable for properties of the manifold were investigated, which resulted in the selection of 3mm glass fibers needle in a weight ratio of 30%. By fabricating the test samples of the mentioned composite and extracting the desired properties in the laboratory, the 3D model of the part was employed in Abaqus software and the composite properties were defined for the model. Then the operating conditions and manifold tests in Abaqus simulation and its results were evaluated. Finally, the air manifold was fabricated by the composite material and then analyzed experimentally. The test results showed that the selected composite will pass all the conditions.