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日益成为航空航天(波音787、空中客车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)行业主要承载结构的首选材料。为了充分发挥这些先进材料的潜力，并减少在各种设计应用中引入它们所需的时间和成本，关键是要有基于科学的计算工具，这些工具可以可靠和有效地预测复合材料结构在使用中预期承受的载荷下的行为。尽管复合材料的结构分析和设计技术在过去几十年中取得了重大进展，但预测其对造成重大破坏的碰撞和冲击事件等极端载荷条件的响应仍然是一个难以捉摸和具有挑战性的命题。 聚合物复合材料的制造过程通常需要在所需形状的工具上以不同方向预先浸渍树脂(或预浸料)的单向或机织纤维片堆叠，然后使整个组件在高压锅或烘箱内经历受控的温度和压力循环。这一过程导致复合材料部件的固化或固化，在此过程中聚合物基质会产生硬度。纤维和树脂在微观层面上的性能不匹配，再加上复合材料在宏观层面上的层状和各向异性，不可避免地会导致缺陷的产生(如残余应力、弹入、纤维错位、皱纹等)。在最终制造的部件中。因此，量化这些制造时的性能(包括几何和材料)并将其纳入结构分析是复合材料结构的重要设计要求，其中材料和成品结构是一步完成的。 在申请人及其合作者和学生在复合材料工艺和损伤建模这两个核心领域开展的先前工作的基础上，本研究的目的是创建一个计算(数字)平台，该平台集成了复合材料的制造和结构模拟，以预测其对碰撞和冲击载荷的响应，并将其应用于目前在航空航天和国防工业中使用的典型复合材料系统。这项拟议的研究利用了与领先的国际机构正在进行的合作，并将导致培训4名博士和2名硕士。将由NSERC DG部分或全部资助的学生以及几名本科生、博士后研究员和来自合作机构的来访学生将从其他资金来源获得支持。

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.