An Integrated Digital Framework for Manufacturing and Design of Composite Structures under Crash and Impact Loading

高性能聚合物基复合材料已日益成为航空航天（波音787、空客350、庞巴迪c系列）、汽车（宝马i3和i8）、能源（风力涡轮机）和国防（个人防护）行业主要承重结构的首选材料。为了充分发挥这些先进材料的潜力，减少在各种设计应用中引入它们所需的时间和成本，拥有基于科学的计算工具是至关重要的，这些计算工具可以可靠有效地用于预测复合材料结构在预期持续使用的载荷下的行为。虽然在过去的几十年里，复合材料的结构分析和设计技术取得了重大进展，但预测其对极端载荷条件（如碰撞和冲击事件）的响应仍然是一个难以捉摸且具有挑战性的问题。

High performance polymer matrix composites have increasingly become the material of choice for primary load bearing structures in aerospace (Boeing 787, Airbus 350, Bombardier C-series), automotive (BMW i3 and i8), energy (wind turbines) and defence (personal protection) industries. To realize the full potential of these advanced materials and reduce the time and cost required to introduce them in various design applications, it is critical to have science-based computational tools that can be used reliably and efficiently to predict the behaviour of the composite structure to loads that they are expected to sustain in-service. While significant progress has been made over the last couple of decades in structural analysis and design technologies for composite materials, the prediction of their response to extreme loading conditions such as crash and impact events that impart significant damage remains an elusive and challenging proposition. The manufacturing process of polymeric composites generally entails stacking of sheets of unidirectional or woven fibres that are pre-impregnated with resin (or pre-pregs) at various orientations over a tool of desired shape and then subjecting the entire assembly to a controlled cycle of temperature and pressure inside an autoclave or oven. This process results in the curing or solidification of the composite part during which the polymer matrix develops stiffness. The mismatch of the properties of the fibre and the resin at the micro-level combined with the layered and anisotropic nature of composite materials at the macro-level inevitably lead to generation of defects (e.g. residual stresses, spring-in, fibre misalignments, wrinkles, etc.) in the final manufactured component. Quantification of these as-manufactured properties (both geometrical and material) and their incorporation in the structural analyses is therefore a vital design requirement for composite structures where the material and the finished structure are built in one step. Building on the previous body of work developed by the applicant and his team of collaborators and students in the two core areas of process and damage modelling of composite materials, the aim of this research is to create a computational (digital) platform that integrates the manufacturing and structural simulations of composites to predict their response to crash and impact loading and apply it to typical composite material systems that are currently being used in aerospace and defence industries. The proposed research takes advantage of ongoing collaborations with leading international institutes and will lead to training of 4 Ph.D. and 2 M.A.Sc. students who will be supported partially or fully by this NSERC DG as well as several undergraduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting students from the collaborating institutes who will be supported from other sources of funding.