Integrated Computational Modeling for Efficient Material and Process Design for Composite Aerospace Structures

Abstract

ICME (Integrated Computational Materials Engineering) is an integrated approach to the design of structural components. If executed efficiently, ICME enables the optimization of the materials, manufacturing processes, and component design very early in the design cycle, thus leading to large cost savings due to the minimization (or complete elimination) of re-working and/or re-engineering a design process. ICME spans many length scales, and for a fiber reinforced composite material, these include starting at the fiber/matrix length scale and progressing towards the structural scale, with the lamina scale (for continuous fiber reinforced plastic – CFRP) or the textile architecture (microstructure of the weave, braid or lamina) being an intermediate scale. In this paper, a team consisting of academia and multiple industries brings together their collective expertise to examine the interconnection of these scales to develop an accurate processing/ microstructure/ property/ performance framework for the design of two structural components, one made of a textile composite and the other being a CFRP laminated structure. An integrated approach and tool-set that automates the data representation and exchange of data between multi-scale composite models, thereby enabling integrated digital optimization for new composite materials and/or their manufacturing processes will be presented. We discuss the challenges and approaches in identifying the data to be exchanged and bridging the individual models and different simulation software tools. We present the results validating our approach and tool-set using three different multi-scale models. We compare our results with traditional lab tests and conclude with a discussion of current limitations and future improvements.