Braided thermoplastic composites characterisation and modelling

在正确的应用中，复合材料是解决脱碳挑战的完美选择，具有低质量，优异的机械性能，特别是热塑性复合材料，低嵌入碳，易于重复使用，再制造和回收。缺乏材料数据，设备和方法阻碍了英国从领先的，完全由英国制造的复合材料中受益。设计师只需点击鼠标，就可以获得准确的数据，模拟他们的产品在由钢或铝制成时的性能。在许多应用中，玻璃纤维或碳纤维复合材料可能是更好的选择，但设计师永远不会知道，因为它们无法轻松模拟性能。复合材料编织有限公司（CBL）在使用材料和工艺的创新组合方面是独一无二的，以更高的产量和更低的价格提供结构复合材料。拥有比以往任何时候都更好的环保证书。广泛的市场领域（包括汽车、铁路、航空航天、海事、基础设施和休闲）迫切需要轻质、坚固和弹性的材料，这些材料具有低碳足迹，以满足性能和环境目标。CBL的成立就是为了满足这些需求。任何有能力的测试机构都可以准确地测试标准试样。这适用于金属，但对于表征复合材料产品并不总是足够和可能的。与金属相比，复合材料部件的形状和结构在更大程度上决定了其性能，因此复合材料狗骨形的拉伸测试并不能代表复合材料管的拉伸强度。凭借NPL的专业知识，我们的目标是测试一系列不同几何形状的部件。（这是不可用的'现成的'，并需要像NPL的能力），具有不同的材料和铺层。将仔细选择组件，以代表尽可能广泛的最终产品，例如，35毫米的圆管将是自行车车架，抓杆，汽车底盘组件和许多其他合理的基础。我们将把这些结果与标准试样测试和原材料数据进行比较，并使用建模技术来确定它们之间的关系，以形成更准确模拟零件性能的基础，并支持未来试样测试的产品保证-这是目前不可用的，因此这种方法是创新的。最终，通过高端数字孪生包可能达到精确模拟的相同终点，但这仍然取决于我们在这里寻求的数据和验证。

In the right applications, composites are perfect to address decarbonisation challenges, with low mass, excellent mechanical performance and especially for thermoplastic composites, low embedded carbon and ease of re-use, remanufacturing, and recycling.Lack of materials data, equipment, and methods are preventing the UK from benefiting from leading edge, wholly UK manufactured composites. A designer can, at the click of a mouse, obtain accurate data that will simulate how their product will perform if made from say steel or aluminium. In many applications a glass or carbon fibre composite could be a better choice, but the designer would never know, because they can't easily simulate performance.Composite Braiding Ltd (CBL) is unique in using an innovative combination of materials and processes to offer structural composites at higher volumes and lower prices, with better environmental credentials than has ever been historically available.A wide range of market sectors (including automotive, rail, aerospace, maritime, infrastructure and leisure) are in desperate need of lightweight, yet strong and resilient materials with low carbon footprints to meet performance and environmental targets. CBL was founded to address these needs.Any competent test house can accurately test standard coupons. This is suitable for metals, but not always sufficient and possible for characterising composite products. To a far greater degree than metals, the shape and architecture of a composite component defines its properties, so a tensile test of a composite dogbone is not representative of the tensile strength of say, a composite tube.With NPL's expertise we aim to characterise a range of components of different geometries (something that is not available 'off-the-shelf', and requires capabilities like those of NPL), with different materials and layups. Components will be carefully selected to represent as wide a range of final products as possible, e.g. a 35mm round tube would be a reasonable basis for bike frames, grab poles, automotive chassis components and many others. We will compare these results to standard coupon tests and raw materials data and use modelling techniques to ascertain the relationship between them to form a basis for more accurate simulation of part performance and support product assurance from coupon testing in future -- this is not currently available, as such this approach is innovative. Ultimately the same end point of accurate simulation could potentially be reached via high-end digital-twinning packages, but this is still dependent on the data and validation that we are seeking here.