Carbon is essential for the survival of all living things, because it forms the basis of all organic molecules, and organic molecules form the basis of all living things. Although this in itself is quite impressive, with the development of carbon fiber, it has recently found surprising new applications in aerospace, civil engineering and other disciplines. Carbon fiber is stronger, harder and lighter than steel. Therefore, carbon fiber has replaced steel in high-performance products such as aircraft, racing cars and sports equipment.
Carbon fibers are usually combined with other materials to form composites. One of the composite materials is carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP), which is famous for its tensile strength, stiffness and high strength to weight ratio. Due to the high requirements of carbon fiber composites, researchers have carried out several studies to improve the strength of carbon fiber composites, most of which are focused on a special technology called “fiber oriented design”, which improves the strength by optimizing the orientation of fibers.
Researchers at Tokyo University of science have adopted a carbon fiber design method that optimizes the orientation and thickness of the fiber, thereby enhancing the strength of fiber-reinforced plastics and producing lighter plastics in the manufacturing process, helping to make lighter airplanes and cars.
However, the design method of fiber guidance is not without shortcomings. The fiber guide design only optimizes the direction and keeps the fiber thickness fixed, which hinders the full utilization of the mechanical properties of CFRP. Dr ryyosuke Matsuzaki of Tokyo University of Science (TUS) explains that his research focuses on composite materials.
In this context, Dr. Matsuzaki and his colleagues Yuto Mori and Naoya kumekawa in tus proposed a new design method, which can simultaneously optimize the orientation and thickness of fibers according to their position in the composite structure. This allows them to reduce the weight of the CFRP without affecting its strength. Their results are published in the journal composite structure.
Their approach consists of three steps: preparation, iteration, and modification. In the preparation process, the initial analysis is carried out by using the finite element method (FEM) to determine the number of layers, and the qualitative weight evaluation is realized through the fiber guide design of linear lamination model and thickness change model. The fiber orientation is determined by the direction of the principal stress by the iterative method, and the thickness is calculated by the maximum stress theory. Finally, modify the process to modify the accounting for manufacturability, first create a reference “base fiber bundle” area that requires increased strength, and then determine the final direction and thickness of the arrangement fiber bundle, they propagate the package on both sides of the reference.
At the same time, the optimized method can reduce the weight by more than 5%, and make the load transfer efficiency higher than using fiber orientation alone.
Researchers are excited by these results and look forward to using their methods to further reduce the weight of traditional CFRP parts in the future. Dr. Matsuzaki said that our design approach goes beyond traditional composite design to make lighter airplanes and cars, which helps to save energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Post time: Jul-22-2021