CAREER: Integration of Product and Process Design for Short Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites

该学院早期职业发展（Career）项目计划将设计优化、产品和工艺模拟纳入聚合物复合材料加工研究的核心。通过一个新的、全面的框架，将材料加工和设计的基础知识整合在一起，这对聚合物复合材料加工的制造教育和产品实现都是有希望的。今天，成功的工程组织继续在产品设计过程中融入制造需求方面取得进展。然而，不幸的是，当计算机模拟已经彻底改变了新产品出现的方式时，设计师们继续使用特殊的方法来确保产品适应其制造过程，反之亦然。本研究寻求一种新的方法，将产品规格和材料加工要求放在一个共同的基础上，其中产品和过程模拟以及多学科设计优化方法是中心。重点是通过注射成型工艺制造的短纤维增强热塑性塑料产品，其中产品的结构性能由其纤维取向决定，这是在生产过程中决定的。优化设计将基于模具填充模拟、纤维取向预测和结构评估进行计算。要考虑汽车设计中常见的大型工业产品。此外，本研究认识到在当今的本科工程课程中越来越强调设计，因此将通过将多学科设计融入教育教学法来研究决策。教育活动包括对本科生和研究生进行多学科设计的指导，将计算设计融入学生竞赛，并努力使K-12教师更熟悉现代设计方法。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project plans to put design optimization and product and process simulation into the core of polymer composites processing research. The focus on the integration of the fundamentals of materials processing and design via a new, comprehensive framework is promising for both manufacturing education and product realization in polymer composites processing. Today's successful engineering organizations continue to make progress towards incorporating manufacturing demands during a product's design. It is unfortunate, however, that at a time when computer simulation has revolutionized the way new products emerge, designers continue to employ ad-hoc methods to ensure that a product accommodates its manufacturing process and vice versa. This research seeks a new approach that places product specifications and materials processing requirements on a common basis where product and process simulation and multidisciplinary design optimization methods are central. The focus is on short fiber reinforced thermoplastic products manufactured by the injection molding process where a product's structural performance is defined by it's fiber orientation, that is itself determined during production. Optimal designs will be computed based on mold filling simulation, fiber orientation prediction, and structural evaluation. Large-scale industrial products common to automotive design are to be considered. Additionally, this research recognizes the increased design emphasis in today's undergraduate engineering curriculum and will, therefore, study decision making through the merging of multidisciplinary design into the educational pedagogy. Educational activities include undergraduate and graduate instruction on multidisciplinary design, integration of computational design into student competitions, and an effort to make K-12 teachers more familiar with modern design methodologies.