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Fibre-reinforced additive manufacturing (FRAM) with short and continuous fibres yields light and stiff parts and thus increasing industry acceptance. High material anisotropy and specific manufacturing constraints shift the focus towards design for AM (DfAM), particularly on toolpath strategies. Assessing the design-property-processing relations of infill patterns is fundamental to establishing design guidelines for FRAM.

Subject to the DfAM factors performance, economy and manufacturability, the efficacy of two conventional infill patterns (grid and concentric) was compared with two custom strategies derived from the medial axis transformation (MAT) and guided by the principal stresses (MPS). The recorded stiffness and strength, the required CPU and print time, and the degree of path undulation and effective fibre utilisation (minimum printable fibre length) associated with each pattern, served as assessment indices for different case studies. Moreover, the influence of material anisotropy was examined, and a stiffness-alignment index was introduced to predict a pattern’s performance.

The highest stiffnesses and strengths were recorded for the MPS infill, emphasising the need for tailoring print paths rather than using fixed patterns. In contrast to the grid infill, the concentric infill offered short print times and reasonable utilisation of continuous fibres. The MAT-based infill yielded an excellent compromise between the three DfAM factors and experimentally resulted in the best performance.

This constitutes the first comprehensive investigation into infill patterns under DfAM consideration for FRAM, facilitating design and processing choices.

This paper aims to investigate the effect and parametric optimization of process parameters during milling of glass fibre-reinforced plastics (GFRP) composites using grey relational analysis (GRA).

Experiments are conducted using helix angle, spindle speed, feed rate, depth of cut and fibre orientation angle as typical process parameters. GRA is adopted to obtain grey relational grade for the milling process with multiple characteristics, namely, machining force and material removal rate (MRR). Analysis of variance is performed to get the contribution of each parameter on the performance characteristics.

It is observed that helix angle and fibre orientation angle are the most significant process parameters that affect the milling of GFRP composites. The experimental results reveal that the helix angle of 45°, spindle speed of 3000 rpm, feed rate of 1000 mm/min, depth of cut of 2 mm and fibre orientation angle of 15° is the optimum combination of lower machining force and higher MRR. The experimental results for the optimal setting show that there is considerable improvement in the process.

Optimization of process parameters on machining force and MRR during endmilling of GFRP composites using GRA has not been attempted previously.

The determination of stress intensity factors (SIF) is of fundamental importance in prediction of brittle failure using linear elastic fracture mechanics. The presence of a crack in the vicinity of another crack induces an interaction effect. The purpose of this paper is to determine the SIF for an orthotropic lamina subjected to uniaxial loading and containing two cracks. The solution is obtained for one crack being horizontal and located in the centre of lamina while the other crack is inclined to first one. The effect of angle of the second crack, fibre angle is studied. Also, for the case of two parallel cracks, effect of eccentricity in x and y directions is observed.

Boundary collocation method is used and stress functions satisfying governing equations in the domain and ensuring stress singularity at the crack tips are defined. The boundary condition on the edges of lamina and the crack is satisfied to determine the complex coefficients in the stress functions.

For the given fibre angle, orientations of second crack which result in increase/decrease in the SIF at the most dangerous crack tip are found out.

Boundary collocation method which is simple and efficient is extended for studying two crack problem in orthotropic materials.

In this paper, we are interested in the forming of composite part by deep‐drawing and laying‐up processes. We present a new finite element model for the simulation of these processes. The augmented Lagrangian approach is adopted to treat the frictional contact between the composite fabric and the tools. It is based on a new way of writing the Coulomb’s friction law. The numerical simulation is carried out with Abaqus/Explicit software and some numerical results are given to validate the proposed numerical method.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the significance of disparate design variables on the mechanical properties of the composite laminate. Four design variables such as stacking sequence, stacking angle, types of resins and thickness of laminate have been chosen to analyze the impact on mechanical properties of the composite laminate. The detailed investigation is carried out to analyze the effect of a carbon layer in stacking sequence and investigate the impact of various resins on the fastening strength of fibers, stacking angles of the fibers and the thickness of the laminate.

The Taguchi approach has been adopted to detect the most significant design variable for optimum mechanical properties of the hybrid composite laminate. For this intend, L16 orthogonal array has been composed in statistical software Minitab 17. To investigate an effect of design variables on mechanical properties, signal to noise ratio plots were developed in Minitab. The numerical analysis was done by using the analysis of variance.

The single parameter optimization gives the optimal combination A₁B₁C₄D₂ (i.e. stacking sequence C/G/G/G, stacking angle is 00, the type of resin is newly developed resin [NDR] and laminate thickness is 0.3 cm) for tensile strength; A₄B₂C₄D₂ (i.e. stacking sequence G/G/G/C, stacking angle is 450, the type of resin is NDR and laminate thickness is 0.3 cm) for shear strength; and A₂B₃C₄D₂ (i.e. stacking sequence G/C/G/G, stacking angle is 900, the type of resin is NDR and thickness is 0.3 cm) for flexural strength. The types of resins and stacking angles are the most significant design variables on the mechanical properties of the composite laminate.

The novelty in this study is the development of new resin called NDR from polyethylene and polyurea group. The comparative study was carried out between NDR and three conventional resins (i.e. polyester, vinyl ester and epoxy). The NDR gives higher fastening strength to the fibers. Field emission scanning electron microscope images illustrate the better fastening ability of NDR compared with epoxy. The NDR provides an excellent strengthening effect on the RCC beam structure along with carbon fiber (Figure 2).

Fused filament fabrication of continuous-fiber-reinforced polymers is a promising technique to achieve customized high-performance composites. However, the off-axis tensile strength (TS) and Mode I fracture toughness of fused filament fabricated (FFFed) continuous-glass-fiber-reinforced (CGFR) nylon are unknown. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanical and fracture behavior of FFFed CGFR nylon with various fiber content and off-axis fiber alignment.

Tensile tests were performed on FFFed CGFR-nylon with 9.5, 18.9 and 28.4 fiber vol. %. TS was tested with fiber orientations between 0^∘ and 90^∘ at 15^∘ intervals. Double cantilever beam tests were performed to reveal the Mode I fracture toughness of FFFed composites.

TS increased with increasing fiber vol. % from 122 MPa at 9.5 vol. % to 291 MPa at 28 vol. %. FFFed nylon with a triangular infill resulted in 37 vol. % porosity and a TS of 12 MPa. Composite samples had 11–12 vol. % porosity. TS decreased by 78% from 291 MPa to 64 MPa for a change in fiber angle θ from 0^∘ (parallel to the tensile stress) to 15^∘. TS was between 27 and 17 MPa for 300 < θ < 900. Mode I fracture toughness of all the composites were lower than ∼332 J/m2.

Practical applications of FFFed continuous-fiber-reinforced (CFR) nylon should be limited to designs where tensile stresses align within 15^∘ of the fiber orientation. Interlayer fracture toughness of FFFed CFR composites should be confirmed for product designs that operate under Mode I loading.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study showing the effects of fiber orientation on the mechanical behavior and effects of the fiber content on the Mode I fracture toughness of FFFed CGFR nylon.

The purpose of this paper is to study the deterministic elastic buckling behavior of cylindrical fiber–metal laminate panels subjected to uniaxial compressive loading and the investigation of GLAss fiber-REinforced aluminum laminate (GLARE) panels using probabilistic finite element method (FEM) analysis.

The FEM in combination with the eigenvalue buckling analysis is used for the construction of buckling coefficient–curvature parameter diagrams of seven fiber–metal laminate grades, three glass-fiber composites and monolithic 2024-T3 aluminum. The influences of uncertainties concerning material properties and laminate dimensions on the buckling load are studied with sensitivity analyses.

It is found that aluminum has a stronger impact on the buckling behavior of the fiber–metal laminate panels than their constituent uni-directional or woven composites. For the classical simply supported boundary conditions, it is found that there is an approximately linear relation between the buckling coefficient and the curvature parameter when the diagrams are plotted in double logarithmic scale. The probabilistic calculations demonstrate that there is a considerable probability to overestimate the buckling load of GLARE panels with deterministic calculations.

In this study, the deterministic and probabilistic buckling response of fiber metal laminate panels is investigated. It is shown that realistic structural uncertainties could substantially affect the buckling strength of aerospace components.

The three-dimensional arrangement structure of the conductive fiber is an important factor of the shielding effectiveness of the electromagnetic shielding fabric (EMSF). However, until now, the three-dimensional arrangement structure has not been described because of the complex structure, which leads to many difficulties for the subsequent analysis of the electromagnetic characteristics. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a feature extraction method to describe the arrangement structure of the conductive fiber based on the three-dimensional calibration and image processing technology, providing a new idea for the above problem.

First, the three-dimensional positions of the conductive fibers in the EMSF are calibrated using the VHX-600 3D digital microscope and the MATLAB7.5 software. The arrangement characteristics of the conductive fibers are analyzed, and equivalent twist, cross-sectional content, and average angle of a single fiber are proposed to describe the arrangement characteristic of the conductive fiber. Then, a digital description model of the conductive fiber is constructed according to the feature parameters and its three-dimensional structures are reproduced using CATIA. Finally, the reliability of the model is verified by an FDTD example, and the significance and application of the model are given.

The proposed method can provide the feature extraction and description for the complex spatial three-dimensional arrangement structure of conductive fibers. The feature parameters can reflect different micro arrangement features of the conductive fiber. The proposed idea and method can provide a solid foundation for subsequent studies of the electromagnetic properties of the EMSF.

The study in this paper is of great significance and academic value. This paper provides a new three-dimensional calibration method and constructs multiple feature parameters to describe the complex three-dimensional arrangement structure, providing a new effective method to overcome the problem of the conductive fiber description. The proposed method provides an important basis for the shielding mechanism, transmission characteristics, electromagnetic calculation and product design, and woven technology of the EMSF.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, theoretically and experimentally the performance of liquid refractive index sensor (LRIS).

The proposed LRIS is based on the intensity modulation and a bundle fiber. The mathematical model is used to study the effect of inclination angle on performance of the sensor.

The theoretical result shows that the highest sensitivity can be achieved by using a probe inclined with angle 20° which is almost 13 times higher than that of 0° inclination. In the experiment, three different liquids: isopropyl alcohol, water and methanol are used to investigate the sensor response. Both theoretical and experimental results show that the peak power and the location of the displacement curve changes with refractive index. The sensitivities are obtained at 0.11/mm and 0.04/mm for the sensors with 10° and 0° inclination angles, respectively.

In this paper, a simple LRIS is proposed using a bundle fiber as a probe at various inclination angles.

Para-aramid fabrics see service in a great variety of applications, such as heavy weight lifting applications, penetration protective multilayer panels, etc. It is, therefore, increasingly important to understand the strain rate range at which the fabric has optimum mechanical properties. Although this is a field that has not been studied before, it is of great significance since it allows for the determination of the fabric’s layer location within the multilayered structure which offers maximum overall performance. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Rectangular strips of PARAX 300 S8 woven para-aramid fabric underwent uniaxial tensile tests at various extension rates. The angle between two fibers at the center of each specimen was measured after the fabrics were elongated at different tensile extensions. This recovery angle was determined by visual analysis of the test video recordings after specimen unloading. Based on this, the recovery of the weaving form after unloading was also estimated for each tensile extension. A recovery degree based deformation characterization of the sections of a typical load/extension curve has been introduced.

The fabric does not appear to be strain rate sensitive for a strain rate range of 0.03 s-1 to 0.53 s-1, and its load/extension characteristics are generally not affected by the extension rate. However, break load and maximum elongation values appear reduced at actuator velocity of 2,400 mm/min and enhanced at 3,600 mm/min. Finally, the effect of extension rate on the different deformation zones of the material is reported and discussed.

The current research work offers a novel approach for the investigation of non-standard response of woven para-aramid fabrics when subjected to tensile loading under various strain rates. Additionally, a new approach is introduced to explain in detail the deformation zones based on the recovery degree of the fiber orientation angle after unloading.