Multi-scale Modeling and Finite Element Analyses of Thermal Conductivity of 3D C/SiC Composites Fabricating by Flexible-Oriented Woven Process

Thermal conductivity is one of the most significant criterion of three-dimensional carbon fiber-reinforced SiC matrix composites(3D C/SiC).Represent volume element(RVE)models of microscale,void/matrix and mesoscale proposed in this work are used to simulate the thermal conductivity behaviors of the 3D C/SiC composites.An entirely new process is introduced to weave the preform with three-dimensional orthogonal architecture.The 3D steady-state analysis step is created for assessing the thermal conductivity behaviors of the composites by applying periodic temperature boundary conditions.Three RVE models of cuboid,hexagonal and fiber random distribution are respectively developed to comparatively study the influence of fiber package pattern on the thermal conductivities at the microscale.Besides,the effect of void morphology on the thermal conductivity of the matrix is analyzed by the void/matrix models.The prediction results at the mesoscale correspond closely to the experimental values.The effect of the porosities and fiber volume fractions on the thermal conductivities is also taken into consideration.The multi-scale models mentioned in this paper can be used to predict the thermal conductivity behaviors of other composites with complex structures.

Processing, characterization, room temperature mechanical properties and fracture behavior of hot extruded multi-scale B_4C reinforced 5083 aluminum alloy based composites

Microstructural characteristics and mechanical behavior of hot extruded Al5083/B4C nanocomposites were studied.Al5083and Al5083/B4C powders were milled for50h under argon atmosphere in attrition mill with rotational speed of400r/min.For increasing the elongation,milled powders were mixed with30%and50%unmilled aluminum powder(mass fraction)with meanparticle size of>100μm and<100μm and then consolidated by hot pressing and hot extrusion with9:1extrusion ratio.Hot extrudedsamples were studied by optical microscopy,scanning electron microscopy(SEM),energy dispersive spectroscopy(EDS),transmission electron microscopy(TEM),tensile and hardness tests.The results showed that mechanical milling process andpresence of B4C particles increase the yield strength of Al5083alloy from130to566MPa but strongly decrease elongation(from11.3%to0.49%).Adding<100μm unmilled particles enhanced the ductility and reduced tensile strength and hardness,but usingthe>100μm unmilled particles reduced the tensile strength and ductility at the same time.By increasing the content of unmilledparticles failure mechanism changed from brittle to ductile.

Flexible Polydimethylsiloxane Composite with Multi-Scale Conductive Network for Ultra-Strong Electromagnetic Interference Protection

Highly conductive polymer composites(CPCs) with excellent mechanical flexibility are ideal materials for designing excellent electromagnetic interference(EMI) shielding materials,which can be used for the electromagnetic interference protection of flexible electronic devices.It is extremely urgent to fabricate ultra-strong EMI shielding CPCs with efficient conductive networks.In this paper,a novel silver-plated polylactide short fiber(Ag@PL ASF,AAF) was fabricated and was integrated with carbon nanotubes(CNT) to construct a multi-scale conductive network in polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS) matrix.The multi-scale conductive network endowed the flexible PDMS/AAF/CNT composite with excellent electrical conductivity of 440 S m-1and ultra-strong EMI shielding effectiveness(EMI SE) of up to 113 dB,containing only 5.0 vol% of AAF and 3.0 vol% of CNT(11.1wt% conductive filler content).Due to its excellent flexibility,the composite still showed 94% and 90% retention rates of EMI SE even after subjected to a simulated aging strategy(60℃ for 7 days) and 10,000 bending-releasing cycles.This strategy provides an important guidance for designing excellent EMI shielding materials to protect the workspace,environment and sensitive circuits against radiation for flexible electronic devices.

Identification of denatured and normal biological tissues based on compressed sensing and refined composite multi-scale fuzzy entropy during high intensity focused ultrasound treatment

In high intensity focused ultrasound(HIFU)treatment,it is crucial to accurately identify denatured and normal biological tissues.In this paper,a novel method based on compressed sensing(CS)and refined composite multi-scale fuzzy entropy(RCMFE)is proposed.First,CS is used to denoise the HIFU echo signals.Then the multi-scale fuzzy entropy(MFE)and RCMFE of the denoised HIFU echo signals are calculated.This study analyzed 90 cases of HIFU echo signals,including 45 cases in normal status and 45 cases in denatured status,and the results show that although both MFE and RCMFE can be used to identify denatured tissues,the intra-class distance of RCMFE on each scale factor is smaller than MFE,and the inter-class distance is larger than MFE.Compared with MFE,RCMFE can calculate the complexity of the signal more accurately and improve the stability,compactness,and separability.When RCMFE is selected as the characteristic parameter,the RCMFE difference between denatured and normal biological tissues is more evident than that of MFE,which helps doctors evaluate the treatment effect more accurately.When the scale factor is selected as 16,the best distinguishing effect can be obtained.

Multi-Scale Damage Model for Quasi-Brittle Composite Materials

In the present paper,a hierarchical multi-scale method is developed for the nonlinear analysis of composite materials undergoing heterogeneity and damage.Starting from the homogenization theory,the energy equivalence between scales is developed.Then accompanied with the energy based damage model,the multi-scale damage evolutions are resolved by homogenizing the energy scalar over the meso-cell.The macroscopic behaviors described by the multi-scale damage evolutions represent the mesoscopic heterogeneity and damage of the composites.A rather simple structure made from particle reinforced composite materials is developed as a numerical example.The agreement between the fullscale simulating results and the multi-scale simulating results demonstrates the capacity of the proposed model to simulate nonlinear behaviors of quasi-brittle composite materials within the multi-scale framework.

Concurrent multi-scale design optimization of composite frame structures using the Heaviside penalization of discrete material model

This paper deals with the concurrent multi-scale optimization design of frame structure composed of glass or carbon fiber reinforced polymer laminates. In the composite frame structure, the fiber winding angle at the micro-material scale and the geometrical parameter of components of the frame in the macro-structural scale are introduced as the independent variables on the two geometrical scales. Considering manufacturing requirements, discrete fiber winding angles are specified for the micro design variable. The improved Heaviside penalization discrete material optimization interpolation scheme has been applied to achieve the discrete optimization design of the fiber winding angle. An optimization model based on the minimum structural compliance and the specified fiber material volume constraint has been established. The sensitivity information about the two geometrical scales design variables are also deduced considering the characteristics of discrete fiber winding angles. The optimization results of the fiber winding angle or the macro structural topology on the two single geometrical scales, together with the concurrent two-scale optimization, is separately studied and compared in the paper. Numerical examples in the paper show that the concurrent multi-scale optimization can further explore the coupling effect between the macro-structure and micro-material of the composite to achieve an ultralight design of the composite frame structure. The novel two geometrical scales optimization model provides a new opportunity for the design of composite structure in aerospace and other industries.

A new stress-based multi-scale failure criterion of composites and its validation in open hole tension tests

A new stress-based multi-scale failure criterion is proposed based on a series of off-axis tension tests, and their corresponding fiber failure modes and matrix failure modes are determined at the microscopic level. It is a physical mechanism based, three-dimensional damage analysis criterion which takes into consideration the constituent properties on the macroscopic failure behavior of the composite laminates. A complete set of stress transformation, damage determination and evolution methods are established to realize the application of the multi-scale method in failure analysis. Open-hole tension（OHT） specimens of three material systems（CCF300/5228, CCF300/5428 and T700/5428） are tested according to ASTM standard D5766, and good agreements are found between the experimental results and the numerical predictions. It is found that fiber strength is a key factor influencing the ultimate strength of the laminates, while matrix failure alleviates the stress concentration around the hole. Different matchings of fiber and matrix result in different failure modes as well as ultimate strengths.

Elastic Predictions of 3D Orthogonal Woven Composites Using Micro/meso-scale Repeated Unit Cell Models

This presentation predicts the elastic properties of three-dimensional(3D)orthogonal woven composite(3DOWC)by finite element analysis based on micro/meso repeated unit cell(RUC)models.First,the properties of fiber yarn are obtained by analysis on a micro-scale RUC model assuming fibers in a hexagonal distribution pattern in the polymer matrix.Then a full thickness meso-scale RUC model including weft yarns,warp yarns,Z-yarns and pure resin zones is established and full stiffness matrix of the 3DOWC including the in-plane and flexural constants are predicted.For thick 3DOWC with large number of weft,warp layers,an alternative analysis method is proposed in which an inner meso-RUC and a surface meso-RUC are established,respectively.Then the properties of 3DOWC are deduced based on laminate theory and properties of the inner and surface layers.The predicted results by the above two alternative methods are in good experimental agreement.

Multi-scale thermodynamic analysis method for 2D SiC/SiC composite turbine guide vanes

Ceramic Matrix Composite （CMC） turbine guide vanes possess multi-scale stress and strain with inhomogeneity at the microscopic scale. Given that the macroscopic distribution cannot reflect the microscopic stress fluctuation, the macroscopic method fails to meet the requirements of stress and strain analysis of CMC turbine guide vanes. Furthermore, the complete thermodynamic properties of 2D woven SiC/SiC-CMC cannot be obtained through experimentation, Accordingly, a method to calculate the thermodynamic properties of CMC and analyze multi-scale stress and strain of the turbine guide vanes should be established. In this study, the multi-scale thermodynamic analysis is investigated. The thermodynamic properties of Chemical Vapor Infiltration （CVI） pro- cessed SiC/SiC-CMC are predicted by a Representative Volume Element （RVE） model with porosity, leading to the result that the relative error between the calculated in-plane tensile modulus and the experimental value is 4.2%. The macroscopic response of a guide vane under given conditions is predicted. The relative error between the predicted strain on the trailing edge and the experimental value is 9.7%. The calculation of the stress distribution of micro-scale RVE shows that the maximum value of microscopic stress, which is located in the interlayer matrix, is more than 1.5 times that of macroscopic stress in the same direction and the microscopic stress distribution of the interlayer matrix is related to the pore distribution of the composite.

3D Printing of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites:Development,Application,and Prospective

Continuous fiber reinforced polymer composites(CFRPC)have been widely used in the field of automobile,air-craft,and space due to light weight,high specific strength and modulus in comparison with metal as well as alloys.Innovation on 3D printing of CFRPCs opened a new era for the design and fabrication of complicated composite structure with high performance and low cost.3D printing of CFRPCs provided an enabling technol-ogy to bridge the gaps between advanced materials and innovative structures.State-of-art has been reviewed according to the correlations of materials,structure,process,and performance as well as functions in 3D printing of CFRPCs.Typical applications and future perspective for 3D printing of CFRPCs were illustrated in order to grasp the opportunities and face the challenges,which need much more interdisciplinary researches covering the advanced materials,process and equipment,structural design,and final smart performance.

Multi-scale collaborative design method for macroscopic thermal optimization and mesoscopic woven structure of hypersonic vehicle's TOCMC leading edge

A new thermal protection design method for hypersonic vehicle's leading edge is proposed, which can effectively reduce temperature of the leading edge without additional cooling measures. This method reduces the leading-edge's temperature by the multi-scale collaborative design of the macroscopic thermal optimization and the mesoscopic woven structures of Three-dimensional Orthogonal Woven Ceramic Matrix Composites(TOCMC). The macroscopic thermal optimization is achieved by designing different mesoscopic woven structures in different regions to create combined heat transfer channels to dredge the heat. The combined heat transfer channel is macroscopically represented by the anisotropic thermal conductivity of TOCMC. The thermal optimization multiple linear regression model is established to optimize the heat transport channel, which predicts Theoretical Optimal Thermal Conductivity Configuration(TOTCC) in different regions to achieve the lowest leading-edge temperature. The function-oriented mesostructure design method is invented to design the corresponding mesostructure of TOCMC according to the TOTCC, which consists of universal thermal conductivity prediction formulas for TOCMC. These universal formulas are firstly derived based on the thermal resistance network method, which is verified by experiments with an error of 6.25%. The results show that the collaborative design method can effectively reduce the leading edge temperature by about 12.8% without adding cooling measures.

Finite Element Prediction of the Thermal Conductivity of GNP/Al Composites

A 3 D multi-scale finite element model was developed to predict the effective thermal conductivity of graphene nanoplatelet(GNP)/Al composites.The factors influencing the effective thermal conductivity of the GNP/Al composites were investigated,including the orientation,shape,aspect ratio,configuration and volume fraction of GNPs.The results show that GNPs shape has a little influence on the thermal conductivity of GNP/Al composites,and composites with elliptic GNPs have the highest thermal conductivity.In addition,with increasing the aspect ratio of GNPs,the thermal conductivity of GNP/Al composites increases and finally tends to be stable.The GNPs configuration strongly influences the thermal conductivity of GNP/Al composites,and the thermal conductivity of the composites with layered GNPs is the highest among the five configurations.The effective thermal conductivity is sensitive to volume fraction of GNPs.Ideally,when the volume fraction of layered GNPs reaches 1.54%,the thermal conductivity of GNP/Al composites is as high as 400 W/m K.The findings of this study could provide a good theoretical basis for designing high thermal conductivity GNP/Al composites.

Multi-scale strength analysis of bolted connections used in integral thermal protection system

Efficient and accurate strength analysis of bolted connections is essential in analyzing the integral thermal protection system（ITPS） of hypersonic vehicles, since the system bears severe loads and structural failures usually occur at the connections. Investigations of composite mechanical properties used in ITPS are still in progress as the architecture of the composites is complex. A new method is proposed in this paper for strength analysis of bolted connections by investigating the elastic behavior and failure strength of three-dimensional C/C orthogonal composites used in ITPS. In this method a multi-scale finite element method incorporating the global–local method is established to ensure high efficiency in macro-scale and precision in meso-scale in analysis.Simulation results reveal that predictions of material properties show reasonable accuracy compared with test results. And the multi-scale method can analyze the strength of connections efficiently and accurately.

Research on Fixture's Effect on Properties of Single-Shear Bolt Jointed Composite Laminates Structure

The testing on the bearing strength of single-shear bolt jointed composite laminates structure is done.And the effect of the fixture on the testing results is analyzed. Then a macro-micro multi-scale analytical model combined with the improved"Generalized Method of Cells( GMC) "is developed,which is used to predict the macro bearing strength and to characterize the micro constitute material failure of the bolt jointed composite laminates structure. Both the contact conditions at the bolt/hole boundary and the contact conditions at the specimen/fixture boundary,progressive damage,and the material properties degradation are all taken account into the analytical model. Thus,the numerical simulation results agree well with the experimental results.Finally,the effect of the fixture on the testing results is characterized. The results show that the incomplete contaction between the fixture and the specimen or the lack of the lateral constraint on the specimen will affect the limited bearing strength and the offset bearing strength of the bolt jointed composite laminates structure. In addition,the lower support rigid of the fixture will affect the rigid of the bolt jointed composite laminates structure.

A comparative study of four nonlinear dynamic methods and their applications in classification of ship-radiated noise

Refined composite multi-scale dispersion entropy(RCMDE),as a new and effective nonlinear dynamic method,has been applied in the field of medical diagnosis and fault diagnosis.In this paper,we first introduce RCMDE into the field of underwater acoustic signal processing for complexity feature extraction of ship radiated noise,and then propose a novel classification method for ship-radiated noise based on RCMDE and k-nearest neighbor(KNN),termed RCMDE-KNN.The results of a comparative experiment show that the proposed RCMDE-KNN classification method can effectively extract the complexity features of ship-radiated noise,and has better classification performance under one and two scales than the other three classification methods based on multi-scale permutation entropy(MPE)and KNN,multi-scale weighted-permutation entropy(MW-PE)and KNN,and multi-scale dispersion entropy(MDE)and KNN,termed MPE-KNN,MW-PE-KNN,and MDE-KNN.It is proved that the RCMDE-KNN classification method for ship-radiated noise is feasible and effective,and can obtain a very high recognition rate.

Improvement of Interlaminar Fracture Properties of Out of Autoclave Manufactured Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers Using Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The present study aims to the development of Out of Autoclave (OoA) Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRPs) with increased interlaminar fracture toughness by using MWCNTs. The introduction of MWCNTs into the structure of CFRPs has been succeeded by using carbon nanotube-enriched sizing agent for the pretreatment of the fiber preform using an in-house developed methodology that can be easily scaled up. The positive effect of the proposed methodology on the interlaminar fracture toughness of the CFRP laminate was assessed by the increase of Mode I and Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness of the composites. Different wt% MWCNTs concentrations were used (namely 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2.5%). It was found that the nanomodified composites exhibit a significant increase of the interlaminar critical strain energy release rate GIC and GIIC of the order of 103% and 62% respectively, in the case of 1.5 wt% MWCNTs weight content. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) of the fracture surfaces of CFRP samples revealed the contribution and the associated synergistic mechanisms of MWCNTs to the increase of the crack propagation resistance in the case of nano-modified CFRPs compared to the reference material.

Challenging multiphase complex fluids for applications

Modern processing technology is calling the scientific understanding of dynamic processes,where the science of complex fluids plays a central role.We summarize our recent efforts using the generic approaches of multi-scale physics of complex fluids on apparently irrelevant processes,i.e.the mixing of polymer blends,the processing of thermoplastic(TP) toughened thermosetting(TS) composites using phase separation of TP in TS,as well as the enhanced oil recovery using polymer soft gel.It is emphasized that the thorough physical understanding in multi-scales of time and space through the joint efforts of experiment and theory in each scale is the key issue for the modeling of various processes.

Research on failure criterion of composite based on unified macro- and micro-mechanical model

A new unified macro- and micro-mechanics failure analysis method for composite structures was developed in order to take the effects of composite micro structure into consideration. In this method, the macro stress distribution of composite structure was calculated by commercial finite element analysis software. According to the macro stress distribution, the damage point was searched and the micro-stress distribution was calculated by reformulated finite-volume direct averaging micromechanics （FVDAM）, which was a multi-scale finite element method for composite. The micro structure failure modes were estimated with the failure strength of constituents. A unidirectional composite plate with a circular hole in the center under two kinds of loads was analyzed with the traditional macro-mechanical failure analysis method and the unified macro- and micro-mechanics failure analysis method. The results obtained by the two methods are consistent, which show this new method＇s accuracy and efficiency.

MULTISCALE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR SUBDIVIDED PERIODIC ELASTIC STRUCTURES OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Deals with a study which discussed the mechanical behaviour for subdivided periodic elastic structures of composite materials, from the viewpoint of macro- and meso-scale coupling. Multiscale asymptotic expansion and truncation error estimates; Discussion on multiscale finite element method; Details of higher order difference quotients and total error estimates; Numerical experiments.

A Mixed Wavelet-Learning Method of Predicting Macroscopic Effective Heat Transfer Conductivities of Braided Composite Materials

In this paper,a novel mixed wavelet-learning method is developed for predicting macroscopic effective heat transfer conductivities of braided composite materials with heterogeneous thermal conductivity.This innovative methodology integrates respective superiorities of multi-scale modeling,wavelet transform and neural networks together.By the aid of asymptotic homogenization method(AHM),off-line multi-scalemodeling is accomplished for establishing thematerial databasewith highdimensional and highly-complexmappings.Themulti-scalematerial database and the wavelet-learning strategy ease the on-line training of neural networks,and enable us to efficiently build relatively simple networks that have an essentially increasing capacity and resisting noise for approximating the high-complexity mappings.Moreover,it should be emphasized that the wavelet-learning strategy can not only extract essential data characteristics from the material database,but also achieve a tremendous reduction in input data of neural networks.The numerical experiments performed using multiple 3D braided composite models verify the excellent performance of the presentedmixed approach.The numerical results demonstrate that themixedwaveletlearningmethodology is a robustmethod for computing themacroscopic effective heat transfer conductivities with distinct heterogeneity patterns.The presentedmethod can enormously decrease the computational time,and can be further expanded into estimating macroscopic effective mechanical properties of braided composites.