Optimal vacuum port placement in vacuum-assisted composite manufacturing for leakage detection and localization: a hierarchical optimization approach

Leakages in vacuum-assisted composite manufacturing layup cause porosity and inconsistencies in the final products. Therefore, it is imperative to locate and mend potential leakages before the curing process. One industry method for localizing leakages involves using multiple vacuum channels and measuring flow rates. A key challenge is determining the optimal configuration for placing these flow rate sensors on the layup to achieve the most accurate leakage location predictions. In this study, we defined a cost function based on the layup geometry and vacuum port locations, and used a two-level hierarchical optimization method to find the optimal vacuum port configuration. We introduced two different flow rate calculation methods for setups with uniform and nonuniform permeabilities. The results were validated with experiments, showing that using the optimal configuration significantly increases leakage location prediction accuracy.