Development of Fiber Microstructure during Processing of Discontinuous Fiber Reinforced Composite Products

19 Apr 2024 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Discontinuous fiber-reinforced composites are a special subcategory of composite materials that are used, due to the ability to process them into parts and structures of complex shape in an automated fashion via compression and injection molding, as well as extrusion processes. Discontinuous...

Bottom-up Composites Materials Design for Multifunctionality

02 Apr 2024 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

There are ample of evidence of materials hybridization at scale, even in nature, yields optimal respond to specific functions. In structural materials, hierarchical materials hybridization accounting for defects or porosity would offer optimal performance at reduced materials mass. Similar...

Composites in Sports: A Testbed for Cutting-edge Technologies

01 Mar 2024 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

The use of new materials to enhance sports performance is inevitable, and the development of sports equipment and apparel stands as a significant industry. Frequently, cutting-edge materials like composites find extensive use in sports equipment and are often introduced on the playing field long...

US-COMP: Next Generation of Composites Materials for Crewed Deep Space Missions

15 Dec 2023 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Current state-of-the-art composite materials are not light/strong enough for crewed missions to Mars and beyond. Structural components of deep space vehicles require lighter/stronger materials for fuel efficiency. The NASA Space Technologies Research Institute (STRI) for Ultra-Strong Composites...

Structural Self-sensing Based on Measuring the Resistance, Capacitance or Inductance of the Structural <aterial, Without Sensor Incorporation

06 Nov 2023 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Structural self-sensing refers to a structural material sensing itself without sensor incorporation. Compared to sensor incorporation, advantages include low cost, high durability, large sensing volume and the mechanical properties being not degraded. The self-sensing ability makes the structural...

Composites Forming Simulations - on Physics & Data, Accuracy & Applicability

23 May 2023 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Composites Forming processes, in particular stamp forming, offer the potential of high volume manufacturing of light weight structural parts. Such parts need to be designed with the process and its requirements in mind, in order to prevent process induced defects such as wrinkling or poor...

M3 – A Sustainable Approach to Vehicle Light-weighting with Composites: Methods – Materials – Manufacturing

07 Apr 2023 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

The presentation will introduce our house of competence, KIT and Fraunhofer ICT and introduce our MMM approach to engineered lightweight solutions for specific industries. This comprises of the development of virtual process chains, material and manufacturing solutions for relevant technologies...

Imparting Robustness to Out-of-Autoclave Prepregs

09 Mar 2023 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Autoclaves have long been used to ensure robustness in the production of composite parts. However, they present a production bottleneck, as well as high capital and recurring costs. Out-of-autoclave prepregs were introduced to allow oven curing and thereby address some of these issues. These OoA...

Fiber Orientation Prediction for Discontinuous Fiber Composites: Fundamentals and Future Trends

08 Feb 2023 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

When composite materials with discontinuous fibers are processed into their final shape, any flow alters the fiber orientation pattern and affects the properties of the final composite. It is now standard practice to predict fiber orientation patterns and the resulting mechanical properties in...

Master Laminates to Simplify Design, Manufacturing, and Testing of Composites

12 Dec 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Composite materials and structures have traditionally been viewed as more complicated than metals. With master stiffness and failure envelopes composites are as simple as metals. Stiffness of laminates can be split into two part: one for trace that represents the total stiffness capacity; one for...

Adaptive Multi-Scale & Multi-Fidelity Progressive Failure Analysis of Composites

14 Nov 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Although high-fidelity modeling of progressive damage has advanced our understanding of failure mechanisms in fibre-reinforced composites, such techniques are currently still too computationally intensive for direct application to composite structures. The multi-scale nature of damage in...

Multiscale Modeling of Damage Mechanics of Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites From Micro- to Macroscale: The (Virtual) Reality and Challenges Ahead

13 May 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Multi-scale modelling of composites is a very active topic in composites science. This is illustrated by the numerous sessions in the recent European and International Conferences on Composite Materials, but also by the fast developments in multi-scale modelling software tools, developed by large...

The Story of Permeability in Liquid Composite Molding (LCM): How to Devise and Validate Process Simulation Software?

13 Apr 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Permeability characterizes the capability of establishing a fluid flow through a porous medium. This lecture aims to present a summary on the state-of-the-art knowledge on permeability in LCM together with a discussion on open questions. The Story of Permeability in Liquid Composite Molding (LCM)...

Capillary Effects in Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Processing: A Zoom on the Flow Front

06 Apr 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Capillarity plays a major role in many natural and engineered systems, from nutrient delivery in plants, management of humidity in soils, to heat pipes and porous systems for spill recovery. In composite manufacturing, particularly in Liquid Composite Molding processes, capillary effects take...

Composite Materials: Where We are and Where to Go (Mechanical and Electrical Properties of Polymer Composites)

02 Mar 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Composite materials have developed in the last 60 years from a just new material into a class of established engineering material with surprisingly outstanding properties. Best demonstrated as being the material of choice in the aerospace industry. The idea of fibre reinforced composites was to...

Fiber-Optic-Based In-Process Monitoring of CFRP Structures for Material Quality Assurance

27 Jan 2022 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Although carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites have been used extensively in many aerospace structures such as Boeing 787 and Airbus 350, low-cost and high-rate production CFRP are highly demanded for next-generation single-aisle commercial aircraft. Competition has been increasing...

Fibrous Shell Approach and 3D Second Gradient Modeling for Textile Composite Draping

10 Dec 2021 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

Composite manufacturing processes are often complex and process simulation is a way to avoid costly trial-anderror development. Simulations of composites textile reinforcements draping use shell finite elements for which the bending behavior is very particular. The fibrous composition of the...

A Semi-Discrete Model for Progressive Damage and Failure of Fiber Reinforced Laminates

15 Nov 2021 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

High-strength and high-stiffness carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite laminates (CFRP) are being increasingly used for primary load bearing structures in many industries. The most common material system used is based on thermoset resins (matrix material), which come in the form of convenient...

Control of Reaction Fronts for Rapid Energy-Efficient Manufacturing of Multifunctional Polymers and Composites

04 Jun 2021 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

This lecture describes a new manufacturing platform technology that allows for near net-zero energy fabrication of structural polymers and composites. The approach is predicated on the exploitation of a self-propagating polymerization reaction occurring in a system undergoing reaction and...

Sustainable Manufacturing of Composite Materials

21 May 2021 | Contributor(s): Johnathan Goodsell

The growing use of composite materials in aerospace, transportation, recreational products and renewable energy production manufacturing has created a critical need for low-cost sustainable manufacturing methods. The current methods of consolidation and cure are not compatible with the projected...