L.K. Grunenfelder and S.R. Nutt 1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0241, USA *Corresponding author: [email protected] Abstract: Void formation as a function of resin moisture content was investigated to better understand and control process defects in composite parts made from prepreg. In this study, uncured prepr...

The paper deals with the application of the parallel and distributed calculations for global optimization of composite structures. Evolutionary Algorithm and Artificial Immune System are employed as global optimization methods. The aim of the optimization is to find the best stacking sequence of laminates for given criteria. To reduce the computational time parallel versions of global optimizat...

The moisture absorption behavior and the influence of moisture on thermal and mechanical properties of glass–fiber/polyetherimide (PEI) laminates have been investigated. The laminates were exposed to hydrothermal aging at two different temperatures and high moisture rates. The properties of as-received and hydrothermally aged samples were compared. The hydrothermally aged laminates contained a ...

This paper describes the experimental investigation on the effect of ply thickness on the first ply failure, delamination, and the subsequent final failure of graphite/epoxy composite laminates. The laminates considered in this paper are a cross-ply and two quasi-isotropic laminates containing thin plies in the desired interface. The onset of the first ply failure and delamination, and the stre...

GLARE (GLAss REinforced) belongs to a family of fibre-metal laminates currently being used as a skin material for the upper and side shells in the forward and rear fuselage body of A380. This composite material consists of thin layers of aluminium sheets and unidirectional prepreg layers of glass fibres embedded into an epoxy based matrix. GLARE demonstrates excellent resistance to fatigue crac...

This paper describes the optimization of a composite laminate made from two materials. The use of two materials in the laminates design can offer improved designs, as it is possible to combine the desirable properties of the two materials. In this paper, we consider the use of graphite-epoxy, which has high stiffness properties, but is expensive, and glass-epoxy, which is not as stiff, but has ...

Two themes form the basis of this study on fibre reinforced laminated composites: namely 'thermal residual stress' and 'transverse cracking'. Thermal residual stresses are inherent to any composite structure and are internal stress within the structure that form during manufacture. Their formation arises from the difference in coefficient of thermal expansion of the fibre and the matrix. These ...