CAREER: Integration of Product and Process Design for Short Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites

这个教师早期职业发展（CAREER）项目计划将设计优化和产品和工艺模拟纳入聚合物复合材料加工研究的核心。 通过一个新的，全面的框架，材料加工和设计的基础集成的重点是有前途的制造教育和产品实现聚合物复合材料加工。 今天成功的工程组织继续在产品设计过程中融入制造需求方面取得进展。 然而，不幸的是，在计算机模拟已经彻底改变了新产品出现的方式的时候，设计师继续采用特别的方法来确保产品适应其制造过程，反之亦然。本研究寻求一种新的方法，将产品规格和材料加工要求的共同基础上，产品和工艺模拟和多学科的设计优化方法是中央。 重点是通过注塑工艺制造的短纤维增强热塑性产品，其中产品的结构性能由其纤维取向定义，这本身在生产过程中确定。最佳设计将根据模具填充模拟、纤维取向预测和结构评估进行计算。汽车设计中常见的大型工业产品也要考虑。此外，本研究认识到，在今天的本科工程课程的设计重点增加，因此，将研究决策，通过多学科设计到教育教学法的合并。教育活动包括多学科设计的本科生和研究生教学，将计算设计融入学生竞赛，以及努力使K-12教师更熟悉现代设计方法。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project plans to put design optimization and product and process simulation into the core of polymer composites processing research. The focus on the integration of the fundamentals of materials processing and design via a new, comprehensive framework is promising for both manufacturing education and product realization in polymer composites processing. Today's successful engineering organizations continue to make progress towards incorporating manufacturing demands during a product's design. It is unfortunate, however, that at a time when computer simulation has revolutionized the way new products emerge, designers continue to employ ad-hoc methods to ensure that a product accommodates its manufacturing process and vice versa. This research seeks a new approach that places product specifications and materials processing requirements on a common basis where product and process simulation and multidisciplinary design optimization methods are central. The focus is on short fiber reinforced thermoplastic products manufactured by the injection molding process where a product's structural performance is defined by it's fiber orientation, that is itself determined during production. Optimal designs will be computed based on mold filling simulation, fiber orientation prediction, and structural evaluation. Large-scale industrial products common to automotive design are to be considered. Additionally, this research recognizes the increased design emphasis in today's undergraduate engineering curriculum and will, therefore, study decision making through the merging of multidisciplinary design into the educational pedagogy. Educational activities include undergraduate and graduate instruction on multidisciplinary design, integration of computational design into student competitions, and an effort to make K-12 teachers more familiar with modern design methodologies.