Fibre Reinforced Composite Structures Design for higher Structural Perfomance

Composite materials offer an attractive alternative to metals in the automotive, aerospace, marine and civil industries. The correct combination of strong, high modulus properties of polymer/ fibre reinforced composites provide means to produce light, yet very strong assemblies. This research looks into filament wound pressure vessels and establishes optimum percentage composition of reactive thermoset resins and glass fibres through a series of material testing and finite element modelling. Means to establish optimum design loads, material properties and fibre compositions are investigated to identify and produce innovative fibre reinforced composite structures with high structural performance at minimal costs. Various progressive ply failure analysis procedures have been developed and are currently being validated through a series of experimental tests.

Figure 1: Progression of failure of a fibre reinforced composite plate subject to out-of-plane bending

 Funded projects: FiReComp