Research Projects

The relevance of composite materials has grown over the past few decades, especially in the aerospace and automobile industry. However, due to the poor impact performance of composite materials, industries were more interested in using hybrid composites such as fiber metal laminates (FMLs), because of their improved impact performance. FMLs are widely employed in different components of airplanes and automobiles due to their inherent behavior of high impact resistance, high stiffness and fatigue resistance. Due to weak interlaminar strength usage, FMLs are prevented in situations where dynamic loads are expected. However, the past literature have not clearly explained about the development of novel material to improve the interlaminar strength of FML’s. Further, the interlaminar strength of FMLs can be improved by adding carbon nanofillers. In the proposed project, the novel hybrid FML/ Fillers will be developed to improve the strength of FMLs. In addition, environmental effects such as high temperature, humidity and lightning cause the degradation of materials. In the proposed project, FMLs with additives will be developed with three different types of face sheets al, Ti, and Mg alloys. The stacking of AL/CFRP with nano additives/al/CFRP with nano additives/al will be performed using hot pressing process. The coupon level tests will be conducted to analyze the mechanical properties, fracture toughness (mode-I, Mode II), and interface shear strength as per ASTM standards. High-temperature adhesive and epoxy will be chosen in the proposed project. The advanced hybrid composite material will be used for the preparation of skin or base of the stiffened panel and al or CFRP as stiffeners. The stiffeners are attached to the base panel using adhesive. The specimens are prepared at the laboratory level with two stiffeners. The prepared stiffened panel will be kept in a heated chamber till the temperature attains 120°C, and the specimen is taken out from the chamber and placed under a drop weight impactor. The thermocouple setup will be used to monitor the temperature of the specimen. The impactor is allowed to hit the stiffened panel at a temperature of 100°C. The damage will be monitored using SEM after taking the sample from the impact machine. The stiffened panel specimen will be tested under compression loads to estimate the buckling strength of the panel with and without impact. A high cyclic fatigue test of flat hybrid FML with fillers will be carried out at high temperatures. The finite element analysis of the panels will be carried out. The damage initiation and propagation will be predicted and impact, buckling and fatigue strength will be analyzed using FE tools. The experimental results will be compared with numerical FE results. The best hybrid FML with additives will be proposed from the results for high-temperature applications.