Category: Uncategorized

Dr Jevan Furmanski

University of Dayton

Abstract: Recent advances in additive manufacturing with continuously-reinforced composites (AM-CC) has enabled the use of this process to realize mass-efficient, topology-optimized (TO), bioinspired structures.  The consideration of the use of AM-CC-TO primary structure has raised critical questions about this material’s performance and limits of manufacturability, both linked to defects at multiple length scales. This talk will briefly cover challenges related to AM-CC-TO structure, including defect structures, topological junctions, and reconsideration of structural allowables for attritable (limited-lifetime) aircraft.

10:00 to 11:00 20^th February 2023 University of Bristol, Queens Building, Faculty Board Room

We would like to thank Jevan once more for the seminar which was well received by all those who attended, both virtually and by more than 40 people online.

We recently welcomed Professor Dan Zenkert to the University of Bristol where he delivered a fantastic seminar on Multifunctional Carbon Fibre Composites to the CerTest team and to the wider Bristol Composites Institute as well as partners from the National Composites Centre.

Dan Zenkert is, since, 2001 a professor in Lightweight Structures at the department of Engineering Mechanics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dan’s early research work was mainly focused on sandwich structures and sandwich core materials. He has also worked with cost optimisation methods for composite structures and recyclable composite materials. His current research interest is the area of so called structural batteries aiming at developing structurally load carrying materials that simultaneously store electrical energy like a battery. This research is now extended to include more functionalities to carbon fibre composites, such as sensing, morphing and energy harvesting, all properties intrinsically built into the load carrying material itself.

The presentation, on the 3rd Feb 2023, gave a brief introduction to so called structural batteries which in short are carbon fibre composite laminates that store electrical energy just like a lithium-ion battery. But more functions can be integrated using the coupling between mechanics and electrochemistry:, strain sensing, shape-morphing and energy harvesting – all built in to the material itself.

Rafael Ruiz Iglesias a PhD student and CerTest project team member based in the Bristol Composites Institute supervised by Professors Janice Barton and Ole Thomsen, and Dr Geir Olafsson has received the British Society for Strain Measurement (BSSM), Young Stress Analyst prize. The competition is sponsored by Airbus and involves writing a 1000 summary of the applicants project, the project summaries are ranked by a panel of experts in Experimental Mechanics and the top four applicants are invited to present their work at the BSSM Annual Conference. and this year took place in Oxford at St Anne’s college. The competition is open internationally and the other three finalists came from Netherlands, Portugal and UK Industry.

Rafa’s presentation was entitled  “Subsurface Damage Assessment in Composite Laminates Using a Novel Full Field Imaging Technique” which is aligned to the EPSRC funded Programme Grant Certification for Design – Reshaping the Testing Pyramid. Each finalist was allowed 15 minutes for their presentation followed by five minutes of intense questioning; there were over 100 delegates in the audience. Rafa’s presentation was extremely visual and engaging, which the judges appreciated and placed his work first.

The outcome of the competition was announced at the conference dinner, which provided a very nice end to the evening with Rafa receiving first prize. Congratulations to Rafa!

That’s it! – sadly ECCM is all over for another year.

What a tremendous conference – with so many fascinating and truly inspiring presentations given. All of the CerTest project group were able to meet old friends and to make many new connections.

Rafael Ruiz Iglesias (PhD Student, CerTest) said: “It’s been a great conference that composites researchers used for sharing ideas, network and having a good time! I would like to thanks first the Bristol Composites Institute and The CerTest project for this super opportunity and my supervisors Janice Barton, Ole Thybo Thomsen and Geir Olafsson for their big support through this event.”

The CerTest project team were joined at the conference by a wider circle of colleagues from the Bristol Composites Institute – see group photo below:

Looking forward to seeing everyone at ECCM21 in Nantes, France in 2024!

The ECCM20 Conference got off to a great start with an opening Reception at the Olympic museum overlooking Lake Geneva and the incredible mountainous scenery beyond.

Over the past two days members of the CerTest project team have already given some excellent presentations of their recent work. For some members this is the first in-person conference they have been able to attend, and all of the team are pleased to be able to network with others to share their research, discover synergies with the research of others, and forge new connections.

So far we have had the pleasure of hearing presentations from the following speakers:-

Monday, 27 June

Garden 6 / 17:15 – speaker: Roy BULLOCK (61961). Title: Ply Orientation Effects in Multidirectional Carbon/ Epoxy Open-Hole Specimens Subjected to Shear Loading.

Garden 6 / 18:45 – speaker: Neha CHANDARANA (62343). Title: Damage characterisation in open-hole composites using acoustic emission and finite element, validated by X-ray CT.

Tuesday 28 June
Garden 8 / 11:45 – speaker: Tobias LAUX (62344). Title: Hybrid testing for composite substructures.

Garden 5 / 14:30 – speaker: Aewis HII (62521). Title: Development of a Concurrent Multi-scale Analysis Framework using Shell Elements for the Progressive Failure Analysis of Composites.

This evening Prof. Janice Barton will present:

Garden 9 / 18:15 – speaker: Janice BARTON (62222). Title: A new test for validating models of lightning strike damage on CFRP laminates.

With many more to come over the next few days! Keep watching this space for a final update….

We are happy to share our latest paper from the CerTest programme, which was recently published in Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.  

In multiscale modelling of composites, computational homogenization allows us to link the behaviour of material on the finer length scale to a point on the structural scale. However, this process is associated with loss of spatial information on the larger scale. For example, a multiscale model would have information that a wrinkle exists somewhere in the material, but it will have no way of knowing its location. To do this, a second order computational homogenization technique which maintains spatial information has to be developed. This is the focus of our recent paper.

Our colleague Aewis Hii has done an impressive job putting this together.  Thanks go to Bassam El Said and also to Stephen Hallett for his invaluable guidance. Here is an open access link to the article, we hope you find interesting:   

https://lnkd.in/egv_xZfD

CerTest are delighted and extremely proud to announce that Prof. Janice Barton, (CerTest Research Challenge 3 Lead) was awarded the prestigious William M Murray Award for her lecture at the Society for Experimental Mechanics in 2020 and was finally able to be presented with the award in person at this year’s SEM conference in Pittsburgh (13-16 June 2022).

The award was in recognition of her pioneering contribution to the development of Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA).  It merits additional recognition as she is the first female recipient of this award.  

The CerTest project team feel very lucky to have the benefit of Prof. Barton’s expertise in this area to help with the ground-breaking work being done on the project.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/janice-barton-9a88b712_im-in-the-us-attending-the-society-for-experimental-activity-6941849164175585280-eo3F?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web

We are pleased to announce that a team of Academics, Researchers and PhD students from the CerTest project will be presenting their latest work at ECCM 20 (the 20^th European Conference on Composite Materials) in Lausanne, Switzerland – 26-30 June 2022. 

ECCM brings together participants from academia and industry who share an interest in Composite Materials and is the main European forum for Knowledge exchange on recent accomplishments and future trends in Composite materials. 

This year’s conference is on the theme of “Composite meet Sustainability” and will highlight sustainability aspects (bio-based composite, energy efficiency in materials, production and use phases as well as end-of-life scenarios and recycling) in addition to the usual range of topics. Sustainability is very much in the core of CerTest, which aims to radically improve the efficiency of future composite aircraft, decrease of cost and time to market.  

The CerTest team is proud to present the following: 

The Principal Investigator, Ole Thomsen, Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol, will give an overview of the project:  

Validation of Composite Aerostructures through Integrated Multi-Scale Modelling and High-Fidelity Substructure Testing Facilitated by Design of Experiments and Bayesian learning  

The project team of RAs and PhDs will also give presentations to describe their recent work and outstanding achievements: 

Jean Benezech, ), Linus Seelinger, Tim Dodwell, Peter Bastian, Robert Scheichl, Richard Butler. University of Bath: Scalable localized model order reduction applied to composite aero-structures  

Aewis Hii, Bassam El Said, Stephen R Hallett. Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol: Development of a Concurrent Multi-scale Analysis Framework using Shell Elements for the Progressive Failure Analysis of Composites  

Tobias Laux, Jack Callaghan, Sergey Kravchenko, Janice Dulieu‐Barton, Ole Thomsen. Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol: Hybrid testing for composite substructures  

Geir Olafsson, Ole Thomsen, Janice Dulieu-Barton. Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol: Assessment of complex structural scale composite structures by Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA) adapted for 3D perspective imaging.   

Thomas Maierhofer, University of Bath: Fracture toughness and performance of resistance welded and co-bonded thermoset-thermoplastic composite hybrid joints.  

Rafael Ruiz Iglesias, Geir Olafsson, Ole Thomsen, Janice Dulieu-Barton. Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol: Surface and subsurface damage assessment of multi-directional composite laminates utilizing a full field imaging technique.  

Roy Bullock, Tobias Laux, Janice Dulieu‐ Barton, Ole Thomsen. Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol: Ply Orientation Effects in Multidirectional Carbon/Epoxy Open-Hole Specimens Subjected to Shear Loading 

Carl Scarth, Andrew Rhead, Richard Butler. University of Bath: Bayesian calibration of a finite element stiffened panel model using experimental compression test data 

Vincent Maes, Arjun Radhakrishnan, James Kratz. Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol: Zonally heated tooling for moulding complex and highlytapered composites parts

James Evans, Andrew Rhead, Karim Anaya-Izquierdo, Richard Butler. University of Bath: Data driven damage and analytical CAI models for rapid strength prediction    

The Industrial Doctorate Centre on Composites Manufacture will have an information booth in the exhibition at the conference, please visit the booth to find out more about research in Bristol Composites Institute and our two Doctoral Training Centres.

Don’t miss the latest news and updates from the ECCM Conference via the Bristol Composites Institute Twitter account: ‎@UoBrisComposite!