Integrated manufacturing of composites

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Manufacturing of good composite material structures is becoming increasingly complex.  In order to fabricate structures in a consistent, repeatable manner, there must be a combination of basic theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge about the parameters that might affect the processes needed to manufacture that structure.  In the current state-of-the-art, there are methods and existing models that govern many aspects of making a part, from basic design to final manufacturing.  The purpose of this research is to find a way to optimize and improve the design, analysis and manufacturing of composite material structures in order make better and more consistent parts.  The models and software tools that exist tend to be "stand-alone" tools that can help with only certain aspects of design.  Take the Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) injection manufacturing processes an example.  Industry would like to make good composite parts using these processes, but one has to deal with separate software tools for design, stress analysis, fiber placement and resin flow prediction.  A more refined modeling tool should be able to combine or integrate the information gained from these separate tools in an optimized way.  In addition, there are often other aspects specific to an application, which may need to be considered (environmental effects, fatigue, vibration and damping as examples). Modeling and optimization tools developed in this research would be verified by extensive testing of composite structures.  The resulting modeling tools will help those in the aerospace, automotive, sporting goods and other industries where extensive use of advanced composite materials is desired. In summary, the purpose of this research is to integrate design methods for composite materials in order to produce useful design tools.