MSE Ph.D. Proposal – Christopher Oberste

Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Time: 3:30pm

Location: MRDC, room 4211

Committee:

Dr. Ben Wang, Advisor (MSE/ISyE)

Dr. Ken Gall (MSE/ME)

Dr. Satish Kumar (MSE)

Dr. Rob Maskell (Cytec Engineered Materials)

Dr. Donggang Yao (MSE)

Title: Design, Modelling, and Fabrication of Interlaced Thermoplastic Composites by Additive Manufacturing

Abstract:

Conventional manufacturing techniques are unable to meet the anticipated future design requirements of the high performance composites industry, particularly with respect to aerospace and automotive applications.  This is due to inherent limitations in conventional manufacturing processes that make it difficult to manipulate fabric geometry, fiber orientation, and matrix/fiber materials within a composite structure to create a load-customized composite.  Currently, composites are either formed by assembling 2D textiles into laminates or by resin infiltrating 3D textile preforms.  Unfortunately, 2D laminates exhibit very poor out-of-plane properties, while 3D preforms trade improved out-of-plane properties for reduced in-plane tensile and shear properties.

This proposal presents a novel composite manufacturing method capable of fabricating interlaced hybrid composite structures with local internal variations of fabric geometry and matrix/fiber materials.  This method combines additive manufacturing and weaving technologies to permit precise control of individual yarns during a simultaneous weaving and composite formation process, which will enable the development of composite structures that exhibit superior specific strength and modulus when compared to a composite of equivalent materials fabricated by a conventional composite forming technique.

 As part of this project, a prototype of the proposed composite manufacturing method will be developed, to demonstrate the ability to form 2D and 3D composite structures with internal local variation of fabric geometry and matrix/fiber material.  Furthermore, to maximize the value of this new manufacturing process, a processing-structure-property relationship model will be developed in conjunction with the printer prototype, to enable optimization of the composite’s fabric geometry for a given complex load.  The model will be verified by mechanical testing of composites fabricated using the proposed composite manufacturing method.