A Method for Rapid Determination of Fiber Orientation in Reinforced Composites at Lab and Component Scale

摘要

Thermal and mechanical response of the fiber reinforced polymeric, metallic,and ceramic composites are strongly dependent on reinforcement fiber orientation andmatrix resin rich zones within a composite. In many manufacturing techniques thefinal orientation is an outcome of the process and thus, necessitates quantification afterformation to validate the material performance to design specifications. Currentorientation measurement techniques are laborious, destructively invasive, expensive toimplement, and are limited to small spatial domains. This creates a significantlimitation in the ability to validate performance at the part scale where predictivecapability is challenging and a barrier to market entry, limiting the use of light weight,energy efficient glass and carbon fiber reinforced composite materials for structuralapplications. Hence, there is an immediate need for rapid, non-destructive fiber orfiber bundle orientation evaluation for large spatial domains, including whole parts,for expeditious prototyping, composite engineering, and quality assessment to bringnovel fiber reinforced composites to wind, compressed gas storage, infrastructure andautomotive markets. A novel method is developed by the authors using a customThermal Digital Image Correlation (TDIC) method with which one can image a fiberreinforced composite materials including epoxy, vinyl ester, polyester, phenolic, orthermoplastic resin with carbon fiber, glass fiber, basalt fiber or natural fiberreinforcements.