Machine-Learning Based Curing Cycle Optimization in Wind Blade Manufacturing

The vacuum-assisted resin infusion mold (VARIM) process is widely used in wind blade manufacturing for its cost-effectiveness and reliability. However, the current method faces challenges such as long curing times and defects due to nonuniform heating across the blade structure. To address this, a multi-zone heated bed setup tailored to blade thickness has been considered. However, determining an optimal temperature for each zone poses a computational challenge, which can be tackled with a novel machine-learning approach. Using a digital twin based on a high-fidelity multiphysics solver, a time-distributed LSTM model was trained to understand complex resin curing dynamics. This eliminates the need for costly lab experiments, as the model learns heating patterns and curing behavior efficiently. Once trained, the ML model acts as a digital twin by predicting the degree of cure for a given temperature setpoint with 96.73% accuracy. This model, when used as a surrogate for a Nelder-mead optimization workflow, improves the curing time by roughly 12.5% and presents a more uniform curing rate throughout the part.