Plate Vibration and Geometry Study of Impact-Control ABS

Acrylonitrile-Butadine-Styrene (ABS) has been receiving much attention as a cushion against impact and vibration, on account of its very favorable mechanical properties, including elevated impact strength, stiffness and tensile strength, as well as outstanding formability. The geometry of deployed samples does influence dynamic performance. In this work, the methods of analysis, experiment and numerical computation have been applied to explore different modal parameters of rectangular ABS specimens with completely free boundary conditions. Experimentally, Pulse 15.1 software was used to investigate the modal parameters while the specimens were numerically modeled in Abaqus/Standard 3D using C3D20R (second order 20-node quadratic brick) element types with the Lancsoz Eigensolver method. Parametric explorations over the geometry space enabled useful trends to be identified with respect to vibration and impact applications. Experimental and numerical results were found to compare very favorably.

Analytical Modeling of Mechanical Properties and Behavior of Nanotube-Based Nanocomposites

The objective of this paper is to introduce analytical closed form solutions for the prediction of effective axial and transverse Young’s modulus and Poisson ratios of a matrix-filled nanotube (i.e., a representative element of nanotube reinforced nanocomposites) as well as its mechanical behavior (i.e., displacements, strains and stress distributions) when it is subjected to externally applied uniform axial and radial loads. In this work, both the nanotube and its filler material are considered to be generally cylindrical orthotopic. For the derivation of exact solutions for radial loading case, no plain strain condition is assumed and effects of axial strain is taken into consideration to obtain a more precise set of solutions. Analytical formulae are developed based on the principles of linear elasticity and continuum mechanics and then exact solutions are obtained for displacements, strains and stress distributions within the domain of each individual constituent. To validate and verify the accuracy of the closed form solutions obtained from the analytical approach, a 3-D model of a matrix-filled nanotube is generated and solved for displacements, strains and stresses, numerically, using a finite element method. Excellent agreements were achieved between the results obtained from the analytical and numerical methods.

Integration of Carbon Nanotubes Into a Fiberglass Reinforced Polymer Composite and its Effects on Electromagnetic Shielding and Mechanical Properties

Electromagnetic (EM) waves, such as electronic noise and radio frequency interference can be regarded as an invisible electronic pollution which justifies a very active quest for effective electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials. Highly conductive materials of adequate thickness are the primary solutions to shield against EMI. Equipment cases and basic structure of space aircraft and launch vehicles have traditionally been made of aluminum, steel and other electrically conductive metals. However, in recent years composite materials have been used for electronic equipment manufacturing because of their lightweight, high strength, and ease of fabrication. Despite these benefits, composite materials are not as electrically conductive as traditional metals, especially in terms of electrical grounding purposes and shielding. Therefore, extra effort must be taken to resolve these shortcomings. The present work demonstrates a study on developing hybrid composites based on fiberglass with surface grown carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for EMI applications. The choice of fiberglass is primarily because it naturally possesses poor electrical conductivity, hence growing CNTs over glass fiber surface can significantly improve the conductivity. The fabrics were sputter-coated with a thin layer of SiO2 thermal barrier prior to growing of CNTs. The CNTs were grown on the surface of woven fiberglass fabrics utilizing a relatively low temperature technique. Raw fiberglass fabric, SiO2 coated fabric, and SiO2 coated fabric which was subjected to the identical heat treatment as the samples with CNTs were also prepared. Two-layers composite specimens based on different surface treated fiberglass fabrics were fabricated and their EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) was measured. The EMI SE of the hybrid CNT-fiberglass composites was shown to be 5–10 times of the reference samples. However, the tensile mechanical properties of the composites based on the different above mentioned fibers revealed significant degradation due to the elevated CNT growth temperature and the addition of coating layer and CNTs. To further probe the structure of the hybrid composites and the inter-connectivity of the CNTs from one interface to another, sets of 20-layers composites based on different surface treated fabrics were also fabricated and characterized.

Investigating the Effects of the Friction Coefficient and Tool Geometry on the Cup Thickness in the Deep Drawing Process of SPXI250 Alloy

In this paper, effects of friction coefficient and tool geometry on the thickness variations of a cylindrical cup were studied. Blank is made of SPXI250 alloy sheet which was analyzed by Finite Element Method (FEM). This not been studied yet. Finite Element modeling of the deep drawing process was conducted using ABAQUS/EXPLICIT software. A set of appropriate die and punch were designed for experimental tests. The results of the simulation showed that a change in the friction coefficient of the die-blank interface leads to a significant changes in the cup thickness. Moreover, the results revealed that the influence of die nose radius on the final cup thickness variations is greater than that of the punch nose radius. The simulation results of this study were compared with the experimental results and those of the other investigators’. The comparisons of the experimental and simulation results with those of the other researchers were so satisfactory.

Application of Crack Layer in Modeling of Slow Crack Growth in High-Density Polyethylene

Crack layer model provides a comprehensive foundation for modeling of fracture growth, failure analysis, and lifetime prediction. During the past two decades, it has been widely applied for modeling various aspects of brittle fracture in general. This paper illustrates in details the procedure of implementation by an example of slow crack growth in a commercialized high-density polyethylene undergoing creep conditions. Firstly, we determine experimentally the basic parameters employed in constitutive equations of crack layer model such as draw ratio λ, the specific energy of transformation γtr, and drawing stress σdr, etc.. Secondly, we implement crack layer model numerically in lab-developed “Simulator”. The paper provides a paradigm for implementation of crack layer model in slow crack growth, and a blueprint for potential software development that can be used in ranking and the lifetime assessment of a large set of engineering polymers.

Multiscale Analysis of Multifunctional Composite Structures

In a truly multiscale analysis of multilayered composites, the underlying phenomena are represented and their effect on the overall behavior is determined considering the interaction between the different phases and between the laminas. The analysis gets more involved when multiple phenomena are considered since in this case not only the direct effects play a role but also the coupled effects contribute to the distribution of the local fields and the overall response. In a fibrous composite laminate reinforced with piezoelectric filaments, for example, passing an electric field in the fibers generates stresses and strains which propagate through the composite medium due to constraints that exist both at the micromechanical, ply level, and the macromechanical, laminate level. Pyroelectricity is another coupling phenomenon in which a temperature change is caused by an electric field, and hence leads to changes in the stress and strain fields throughout the composite medium. The above phenomena have been considered by the authors in a unified, transformation field analysis (TFA) approach in which stresses and strains which cannot be removed by mechanical unloading are treated as transformation fields. Due to mutual constraints of the phases and the bonded plies, local transformations generate stresses at the micro and macro levels, which are computed by means of influence functions which depend on material geometry and properties. Treatment of damage follows the same scheme but the transformation fields are instead determined such that the local stresses in the affected phase are removed. In the present paper, implementation of the TFA approach in a general purpose finite element code is described. This expands the multiscale analysis outlined above to composite structures where complex geometries can be modeled and the effect of local phenomena can be considered. This naturally comes at a much larger cost of the computations compared to finite element analysis with homogenized models but the benefit of obtaining a more realistic response is clear. Moreover, the availability of high performance computing and parallel processing overcomes the computation time barrier. In the present paper however, simple examples of laminated structures are given as proof of concept in which the results are compared to those of standalone routines. Since the TFA approach centers on treating the composite medium as elastic with induced local transformations, implementation in the finite element framework does not require generation of an overall instantaneous stiffness matrix, which saves tremendously on the computation time. Instead, overall transformation strains, or stresses, are computed through a multiscale model, which is implemented as a user routine, and treated in the general finite element solution as nonmechanical strains in the same way thermal strains are treated.

Observation and Evaluation of Scratch Damage Characteristics of Injection Molded, Rubber Toughened Poly(Methylmethacrylate)

Poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) is one of popular engineering polymers for many engineering applications such as glass substitutes, medical applications, electronic goods, optical fibers, laser disk optical media and so on. PMMA is a lightweight material with excellent optical properties and balanced mechanical properties. However, PMMA is commonly blended with various functional fillers, and rubber particles are one of them to improve the low impact toughness of unfilled PMMA comparing with other engineering polymers such as polycarbonate (PC), acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) copolymer and so on. PMMA is generally used to make exterior of a commercial product, so scratch characteristics of PMMA is very important in terms of the aesthetic point of view. In this paper, rubber toughened PMMA plates are prepared by injection molding, and static and progressive scratch tests are performed. Samples are prepared by various injection molding conditions, and two orientations (machine direction and transverse direction) of the injection molded plate are considered for scratch tests. Three scratch damage mechanism stages, i.e. mar/ploughing, whitening and cutting stages, are identified by observing the scratch damages and two critical loads to define the variation of scratch damage mechanisms are recorded to evaluate the scratch resistance of rubber toughened PMMA samples. Scratch damage characteristics are examined by various microscopy techniques such as optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, optical profiler and so on. It is clearly observed that scratch damage characteristics of rubber toughened PMMA are changed sensitively for various test conditions due to rubber particles, so it can be known that the mold design should be carefully optimized to improve scratch characteristics of injection molded rubber toughened PMMA product.

The Role of Water in the Hygro-Thermo-Mechanical Behavior of Wood

Wood, due to its biological origin, has the capacity to interact with water. Sorption/desorption of moisture is accompanied with swelling/shrinkage and softening/hardening of its stiffness. The correct prediction of the behavior of wood components undergoing environmental loading or industrial process requires that the hygric, thermal and mechanical (HTM) behavior of wood are considered in a coupled manner. In addition, we propose a comprehensive framework using a fully coupled poromechanical approach, where its multiscale implementation provides the capacity to take into account, directly, the exact geometry of wood cellular structure, using computational homogenization. A hierarchical model is used to take into account the subcellular composite-like organization of the material. Such advanced modeling requires high resolution experimental data for the appropriate determination of inputs and for its validation.

Prediction of Elastic Modulus of Glass Short Fiber/Wood Powder/Polypropylene Hybrid Composites

Recent years, thermoplastics incorporated with particulate fillers have been gained high interests. To improve the mechanical properties of the natural particle reinforced polymer plastics, hybrid structure has been applied on the composite combining natural particle with stronger synthetic fibers. However, the reinforcing mechanism of the hybrid composite is quite complicated. Experiments on it may become time consuming and cost prohibitive. Therefore, researchers are interested in studying variable models to predict the elastic properties of the composites. In this study, glass short fiber/wood particle/pp hybrid composites were prepared by injection molding process at a fixed reinforcement to matrix ratio of 51:49. 4 kinds of hybrid specimens with glass fiber/wood particle ratios of 41:10, 31:20, 21:30 and 11:40 were fabricated. The effect of hybridization content on the mechanical properties of the composites was evaluated based on tensile test. Theoretically, the elastic modulus of hybrid composites was predicted by using the rule of hybrid mixtures (RoHM) equation and classical lamination theory (CLT) and the accuracy of the two estimation models has been discussed. Results showed that it can be considered the hybridization of wood powder into glass/PP composite could contribute to a similar high elastic modulus with high green degree. On the other hand, the fiber orientation factor, fiber length distribution factor, powder dispersion factor were very important factors and need to be considered in the prediction model.

Non-Linear Dynamic Magneto Electric Effects in Ferromagnetic-Ferroelectric Layered Composites

A non-linear theoretical model including bending and longitudinal vibration effects was developed for predicting the magneto electric (ME) effects in a laminate bar composite structure consisting of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric multi-layers. If the magnitude of the applied field increases, the deflection rapidly increases and the difference between experimental results and linear predictions becomes large. However, the nonlinear predictions based on the present model well agree with the experimental results within a wide range of applied electric field. The results of the analysis are believed to be useful for materials selection and actuator structure design of actuator in actuator fabrication. It is shown that the problem for bars of symmetrical structure is not divided into a plane problem and a bending problem. A way of simplifying the solution of the problem is found by an asymptotic method. After solving the problem for a laminated bar, formula that enable one to change from one-dimensional required quantities to three dimensional quantities are obtained. The derived analytical expression for ME coefficients depend on vibration frequency and other geometrical and physical parameters of laminated composites. Parametric studies are presented to evaluate the influences of material properties and geometries on strain distribution and the ME coefficient. Analytical expressions indicate that the vibration frequency strongly influences the strain distribution in the laminates, and that these effects strongly influence the ME coefficients. It is shown that for certain values of vibration frequency (resonance frequency), the ME coefficient becomes infinity; as a particular case, low frequency ME coefficient were derived as well.