Expanding engineering capabilities for technical & reinforcement textiles, towards novel applications

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Technical textiles (TTs) are advanced materials created through textile processes. Their unique properties arise from combining high performance synthetic fibres into complex textile structures. Reinforcement textiles (RTs) for composites are one example of TTs. Like all engineered materials, TTs must meet stringent performance metrics. However, TTs differ strongly from other materials: i) non-linear, non-elastic constitutive behaviour permitting large strains and displacements enable large changes in macroscale configuration; ii) variable microscale and mesoscale configurations strongly alter properties such as electric resistance; and iii) properties such as permeability to liquids are highly directional. Furthermore, variability in configuration at all scales leads to higher variability in performance. The central approach of this proposal is to expand fundamental knowledge related to the PI's area of expertise on technical textiles (TTs), well beyond more targeted and delimited questions arising from industrial textile composites manufacturing. The proposal builds on the PI's expertise and probes challenging questions that have received less attention. General applications are proposed and blue-sky collaborators are identified but the proposal is not related to any business case or TRL consideration. The work is articulated around 4 themes, related in that they explore links between textile structure and physical properties at the microscale, mesoscale and macroscale. All themes have an analytical foundation supported by experimental work. - Theme A: Large-scale deformations and configurations of textile structures with multiple constraints. - Theme B: Inspection of deformed carbon multilayer stacks using electrical resistive networks. - Theme C: High-speed flow of suspensions through structured porous media. - Theme D: Configuration of structural textiles and flexible composites under high tensile loads. The foremost impact of the program is the training of 12 HPQ working on emerging topics and applications through a wide variety of approaches, in a multidisciplinary context, along with blue-sky collaborators who embody the varied perspectives of different stakeholders. The program is further enhanced by the PI's enthusiastic commitment to active pursuit of EDI-related objectives as promoted under NSERC policy. The PI's previous Discovery grant targeted fundamental innovation primarily related to composites processing, notably IR probing of dry TR structures. The present Discovery proposal widens the scope of innovation much further, into emerging applications of highly loaded TRs, another new inspection method for dry carbon TRs, and specific challenges with no immediate application to composites. The proposal features themes that are distinct yet related, and it offers credible paths for reaching collaborators in different disciplines in the mid-term, and the wider community of TT researchers and engineers in the long-term.