The introduction of carbon-fibre reinforced plastics in load bearing automotive structures provides a great potential to reduce vehicle weight and fuel consumption. To enable the manufacture and assembly of composite structural parts, reliable and cost-effective joining technologies must be developed. This thesis addresses several aspects of joining and load introduction in carbon-fibre reinfor...

A series of experiments have been performed to determine the mechanisms of failure in compressively loaded laminated plates in the presence of stress gradients generated by a circular cutout. Real time holographic interferometry and in situ photomicrography of the hole surface along with strain gauge measurements are used to study the progression of failure. The test specimens are multilayered ...

Polymer composite joints are critical aerospace components for reinforcing lightweight structures and achieving high eco-efficiency transportation standards. Optimizing complex structural is an iterative process. Fast reliable numerical approaches needed to overcome the runtime limitations of high-fidelity finite element (FE) modeling. This work proposes a computationally efficient approach bas...

Polarimetric optical fibre sensors have been embedded within the 0° ply and close to the 0/90 interface of transparent cross-ply GFRP coupons. The coupons have been subjected to an increasing quasi-static load so that transverse ply cracks initiate and propagate across the coupon. Crack accumulation has been monitored using the optical output signal from the polarimetric sensor, strain measurem...

Composites have proved their usefulness in the automotive industry during recent years. Many automobile companies use them different parts to reduce weight without hampering strength. In a composite material, Lay-up sequence and orientation highly affects properties of laminate. Therefore, it is important perform design optimization on component achieve high strength minimum weight. This paper ...

A number of mechanisms have been proposed for the penetration of laminates comprising ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fibres in a polymeric matrix. Two-dimensional ballistic experiments are conducted in order to directly observe the transient deformation and failure processes occurring immediately under the projectile via high-speed photography. Two sets of experiments were co...

Laboratory tests on relatively small plywood box beams are described. The results suggest that stability of the plywood webs of more realistically sized box beams is not ensured by the rules in timber design codes. A literature search failed to produce sufficient relevant material on plywood panel stability. Hence, the decision to proceed with the theoretical program whose preliminary steps are...

Discrete Stiffness Tailoring (DST) is a novel manufacturing concept where stiffness tailoring achieved using discrete changes in ply angle to favourably redistribute stresses. Resulting performance increases can be exploited potentially achieve lightweight rapidly manufacturable structures, uninhibited by the minimum tow-turning radii which limit continuous fibre steering approaches. An efficie...