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

复合材料是真正的未来材料，因为它们具有高强度/重量比等优异性能，其使用量呈指数级增长，在航空航天、汽车、风力涡轮机叶片、土木工程基础设施和体育用品等不同领域继续取代或增强传统材料。一个很好的例子是建造大型飞机，如空客A350和波音787，按重量计算，这两种飞机分别占53%和50%。然而，尽管纤维的主导性能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看不见的冲击损伤(BVID)。BVID可以在没有任何明显警告的情况下大幅降低强度。看起来很好的结构可能会在远低于预期的荷载下突然失效。这种较弱的抗冲击能力，再加上复合系统典型的故障机制的复杂性，在过去十年中导致了复杂而昂贵的维护/检查程序。因此，比其他材料大得多的安全裕度导致了复合材料结构的保守设计。基于这些前提，显然需要一种全面的解决方案，将轻量化结构的要求与高抗冲击性和易于检查的需求相匹配。该项目旨在设计和开发具有损伤可见性和提高冲击后压缩强度的下一代高性能抗冲击复合材料。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的发生。能量将被逐渐和牺牲的损害所吸收，力量将被保持，并且将有可见的损害证据。这将不再需要非常低的设计应变来满足BVID，使复合材料性能发生阶段性变化，导致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。这是与我广泛的工业合作伙伴一起开发这项新提出的技术的令人兴奋的机会，这对英国复合材料研究和行业具有潜在的变革性前景。

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.