Abstract

A shape-adaptable Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composite (CFRC) is proposed to derive a material with tunable mechanical properties in order to optimize its response to external excitations. The composite is bi-stable thanks to internal stresses arising in the manufacturing process and is characterized by a built-in heating system that can control the temperature of the material. This approach allows to gradually change the actual curvature of the material as well as tuning its natural frequencies and damping properties.

Highlights

  • IntroductionMorphing materials draw considerable attention in several engineering fields because of the significant enhancement in performance that they can convey to structures

  • Morphing materials draw considerable attention in several engineering fields because of the significant enhancement in performance that they can convey to structures.Recently, major challenges are addressed to morphing materials for load‐bearing applications and in particular for carbon fiber composite materials

  • Major challenges are addressed to morphing materials for load‐bearing applications and in particular for carbon fiber composite materials

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Summary

Introduction

Morphing materials draw considerable attention in several engineering fields because of the significant enhancement in performance that they can convey to structures. To classical lamination theory [6,7], unsymmetric laminates do not exhibit a saddle as room‐temperature shape, but two stable cylindrical configurations, while the saddle shape reveals to be unstable [5]. This concept has been expanded into active control via thermal loading [20,21] to obtain controllable stiffness epoxy composites by alternating the plies with a thermoplastic layer [20], as well as by directly coating the fibers with a thermoplastic layer before embedding them into the hosting matrix [21]. The above properties are achieved with a simple and reliable multi‐scale design of the material which leads to an effective morphing system

Material Concept
Structural Characterization
Snap‐Through Oscillations
Conclusions
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