A new paradigm to re-engineering printed composites
Info
| Funded by: | European Research Council (ERC) | |||
| Start Date: | 01/01/2020 | Duration: | 60 Months |
Coordinator
Summary
Additive manufacturing brought to the emergence of a new class of fiber-reinforced materials; namely, the Variable Angle Tow (VAT) composites. AFP and FDM machines allow the fibers to be relaxed along curvilinear paths within the lamina. In theory, the designer can conceive VAT structures with unexplored capabilities and tailor materials with optimized stiffness-to-weight ratios. In practice, steering brittle fibers, generally made of glass or carbon, is not trivial. Printing must be performed at the right combination of temperature, velocity, curvature radii and pressure to preserve the integrity of fibers. The lack of information on how the effect of these parameters propagates through the scales, from fibers to the final structure, represents the missing piece in the puzzle of VAT composites, which today are either costly or difficult to design because affected by unpredictable failure mechanisms and unwanted defects (gaps, overlaps, and fiber kinking).
PRE-ECO is for an exploratory study into a new approach to the problem of design, manufacturing and analysis of printed composite materials. The objectives include, but are not limited to, the development of models for the multi-scale analysis of printed materials and the study of defects propagation.
More details available on www.pre-eco.eu
MUL2 Coordinator
MUL2 Investigators
Matteo Filippi, Riccardo Augello, Rodolfo Azzara, Alberto Racionero, Rebecca Masia