Next generation of high-performance impact resistant composites with visibility of damage

复合材料是真正的未来材料，由于其优异的性能，如高强度重量比，它们的使用呈指数级增长，继续取代或增加传统材料在不同领域，如航空航天，汽车，风力涡轮机叶片，土木工程基础设施和体育用品。一个很好的例子是大型飞机的结构，如空客A350和波音787，它们的复合材料重量分别为53%和50%。然而，虽然纤维的主要特性保证了出色的面内承载特性，但传统复合材料对面外载荷的抵抗能力较弱，使得它们在制造或使用过程中可能发生的冲击载荷下容易受到几乎不可见的冲击损伤（BVID）。BVID可以在没有任何可见警告的情况下大幅降低强度。看起来很好的结构可能在远低于预期的负载下突然失效。这种较弱的抗冲击性，加上复合材料系统典型失效机制的复杂性，在过去十年中导致了复杂而昂贵的维护/检查程序。因此，与其他材料相比，复合材料的安全裕度要大得多，这就导致了复合材料结构的保守设计。基于这些前提，需要一个全面的解决方案，以满足轻质结构的要求，同时需要高抗冲击性和易于检查。该项目旨在设计和开发下一代高性能抗冲击复合材料，这些复合材料具有损伤可视性和冲击后压缩强度的提高。这些特殊的特性是由于能够以优化的方式可视化和控制故障模式。能量将通过渐进的、牺牲性的破坏来吸收，力量将得到维持，并且会有明显的破坏迹象。这将不再需要非常低的设计应变来满足BVID，提供复合材料性能的阶段性变化，带来更高的可靠性和安全性，同时减少设计和维护要求，并延长使用寿命。这是一个令人兴奋的机会，可以与我广泛的工业合作伙伴一起开发这项新技术，这对英国复合材料研究和工业来说是一个潜在的变革前景。

Composites are truly the materials of the future, due to their excellent properties such as high strength to weight ratio, and their use is rising exponentially, continuing to replace or augment traditional materials in different sectors such as aerospace, automotive, wind turbine blades, civil engineering infrastructure and sporting goods. A good example is the construction of large aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 which are 53% and 50% composite by weight, respectively. However, while the fibre dominant properties guarantee excellent in-plane load-bearing characteristics, traditional composite materials exhibit weak resistance to out-of-plane loads, making them susceptible to barely visible impact damage (BVID) under impact loads that can happen during manufacturing or in service. BVID can drastically reduce the strength, without any visible warning. Structures that look fine can fail suddenly at loads much lower than expected. This weak impact resistance together with the complexity of the failure mechanisms typical of composite systems led in the past decade to complex and expensive maintenance/inspection procedures. Therefore, a significantly greater safety margin than other materials leads to conservative design in composite structures. Based on these premises, the need is clear for a comprehensive solution that matches the requirements of lightweight structures with the need for high impact resistance and ease of inspection. This project is aimed at the design and development of next generation of high-performance impact resistant composites with visibility of damage and improved compression after impact strength. These exceptional properties are caused with ability to visualise and control failure modes to happen in an optimised way. Energy would be absorbed by gradual and sacrificial damage, strength would be maintained, and there would be visible evidence of damage. This would eliminate the need for very low design strains to cater for BVID, providing a step change in composite performance, leading to greater reliability and safety, together with reduced design and maintenance requirements, and longer service life. This is an exciting opportunity to develop this novel proposed technology with my extensive industrial partners, a potentially transformative prospect for the UK composites research and industry.