Reza Vaziri

Professor

Relevant Thesis-Based Degree Programs

Affiliations to Research Centres, Institutes & Clusters

 
 

Graduate Student Supervision

Doctoral Student Supervision

Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.

An extended micromechanical model of compacting fibre beds (2024)

An important step in the processing of unidirectional pre-impregnated composite laminates is debulking and compacting the layers to remove gaps between and within the laminae. During this step, the resin is heated up and can flow relative to the fibre bed. Consequently, the fibre bed’s elastic properties play a significant role in determining the pressure withstood by the fibre bed versus the resin, as well as in determining the resulting shear deformation of the prepreg. The flow of resin through the fibre bed is typically modeled by Darcy’s Law, and the fibre bed properties of interest are defined based on the fibre bed compaction curve, a stiffening curve relating the fibre bed's normal stress to its normal strain or volume fraction. The prevalent fibre bed model in literature is a simple analytical formulation that predicts the transverse modulus E_33, but it ignores the fibre bed's shear modulus. This thesis presents three main parts: First, a modified representative volume element is introduced, allowing for simultaneous prediction of the full elastic matrix with correlated transverse and shear moduli, both matching experimental measurements. This model represents all elastic properties through a single, coherent mechanical approach.Second, a statistical representation of the fibre bed is presented, incorporating inherent variations in fibres using the extended fibre bed model. This model establishes a direct connection between the material's mechanical response and the fibre bed architecture, including volume fraction and fibre waviness distribution. Results show that the shear modulus is more susceptible to variation due to non-homogenous fibre interactions creating nonuniform deformation during compaction.Third, classical micromechanical models' inadequacy in simulating prepreg behavior during initial resin curing stages is addressed. The extended fibre bed model is implemented, incorporating resin properties and enabling the calculation of the full elastic matrix for the prepreg as a unified system evolving based on compaction level and resin mechanical properties during curing. Coupling the prepreg micromechanical model with macro-level models provides a multiscale simulation framework necessary for accurate prediction of prepreg behavior throughout processing stages, from pre-gelation to solidified resin.

View record

Investigation of prepreg tack through development of an AFP simulator using in-situ sensing and physics-based simulation (2024)

Automation has driven significant advances in aerospace composites manufacturing. Yet the ever-increasing demand for connectivity and accessible air travel requires the industry to further innovate to manufacture ever larger and more complex structures in a more robust, efficient, and cost-effective manner.A fundamentally science-based approach is proposed that first senses critical process parameters affecting quality outcomes. This data is then analyzed within a physics-based framework representing the manufacturing system. The resulting information is leveraged to plan and optimize the process, which can ultimately be integrated into a cohesive process control strategy. While this framework is technology-agnostic, Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) has been selected for further study. A key material property in this process is prepreg tack. Currently, a considerable gap exists between the state-of-the-art of tack characterization methods and even research AFPs, that are far less industrial scale systems. This work seeks to bridge this gap through the development of a table-top AFP simulator (µAFP) that simulates the tow deposition process and incorporates custom operations such as in-situ peel tests.An in-situ peel test method has been developed that implements the µAFP to characterize prepreg tack during fibre placement. The method has been employed in a series of studies to extensively examine various effects of deposition and peel rates, deposition and peel temperatures and substrate orientation, on tack.A physics-based process simulation framework is introduced, encompassing the development of an equivalent tow deposition model and the incorporation of a pre-existing open-literature tack model. The application of the framework is discussed through a case study.Synchrotron Radiation Computed Tomography has been conducted on prepreg-prepreg layups to evaluate the microstructure of intimate contact. In-situ peel tests have been performed on the corresponding process conditions, to qualitatively establish a link between process conditions, microstructure, and tack.Smart AFP compaction rollers can measure local nip point pressure, in-situ. A comprehensive approach is developed for mechanical design of smart rollers. The smart rollers are finally employed in µAFP to illustrate the application of in-situ process parameter monitoring. These measurements can assist in detecting substrate features, predicting process outcomes, and correlating local conditions with process outcomes.

View record

A Cosserat approach to modelling the deformation mechanisms of uncured composites during processing (2023)

Composite forming is an intricate multi-physics process involving ply slippage, shearing, bending, and compaction within a viscous matrix. Existing simulation technologies primarily adopt shell-based modelling, often sidelining thickness effects and limiting the accuracy of ply-level defect predictions. In response to this limitation, this work integrates the Cosserat continuum (micropolar) theory, offering a mechanism-based approach to capturing the unique layered kinematics of composite layups.A Cosserat continuum extends the traditional continuum models by introducing an additional rotational degree of freedom, providing a framework for accommodating asymmetric shear behaviour and intrinsic bending observed experimentally during the forming process.This theory has been integrated into a custom-built 2D explicit finite element model in MATLAB. The model leverages high-order elements and a co-rotational edge tracking method to define material orientation. To capture the soft and highly deformable behaviours of the uncured composite materials during forming and consolidation, the model incorporates various constitutive responses such as nonlinear fibre-bed compaction, viscoelasticity, and inter-layer plastic slip.The accuracy of the model is demonstrated through extensive verification against analytical solutions and Abaqus models, affirming its robustness under large-strain and large-rotation conditions. The Cosserat-based model efficiently simulates layered structures with fewer nodes and by bypassing the need for contact algorithms, provided the macroscopic behaviour remains continuous. The model is further shown to provide its practical relevance in composite manufacturing by offering valuable insights into wrinkle formation during the consolidation of a C-Channel spar.This research represents a proof of concept, highlighting the potential of the explicit/Cosserat approach in accurately modelling the deformational response of composites during processing. Future enhancements could focus on increasing the speed of the explicit solver, or porting the methodology to a commercial platform as a user element subroutine.

View record

Towards a multiscale viscoelastic flow-stress model for composite processing (2023)

This work extends the Integrated Flow-Stress (IFS) model framework to new frontiers, including capturing the complex two-way interactions between the deformation of solid fiber-bed and the flow of fluid resin, as well as predicting the effect of an additional compressible phase (gas or porosity) on resin distribution and deformation of the part. The first generation of IFS models presented a sequential coupling between the flow model, based on Darcy’s law, and the stress model, based on Terzaghi’s principle, to find the distortion of composite part and its fiber volume fraction during prepreg processing. As the sequential coupling failed to account for the effect of solid deformation on resin flow, the 2nd generation 3-Phase IFS (3PIFS) model introduced a state variable called the solidification factor, which implicitly accounts for pressure sharing between the fluid and solid phases and controls the effective shear and bulk moduli of the composite system.The current Multiscale Viscoelastic 3PIFS model benefits from newly developed computational modules and material characterization procedures. Firstly, the set of governing equations in the original 3PIFS are reformulated in mixed form involving displacements and pressure as elemental degrees of freedom in order to facilitate their implementation in commercial finite-element codes. Secondly, this work uses a differential form viscoelastic material model as the constitutive equation of the resin to account for resin hardening and stress relaxation in complex multi hold cure cycles.Moreover, to find permissible values of the solidification factor during consolidation, the effect of this parameter on solid-fluid pressure-sharing is studied. This parameter is also characterized as a function of both the temperature and degree of cure. Finally, a multiscale porosity model is developed to capture the effects of gas entrapment and capillary pressure on the porosity distribution at micro- and macroscale in the prepreg. This model is verified and validated by comparing the predicted transverse strain, pressure, and porosity distribution to the results of several numerical and experimental tests in the literature involving prepreg’s cure and consolidation under one- and two-hold cure cycles.

View record

A three-phase integrated flow-stress framework for process modelling of composite materials (2017)

An accurate and efficient predictive tool for process modelling of fibre-reinforced polymeric composite materials is highly desirable because of high production cost and substantial risk involved in their manufacturing. Process modelling of composite materials is complex due to multitude of physical and chemical processes such as flow of resin and gaseous volatiles through the fibre-bed, thermochemical changes, and stress development. These phenomena are usually simulated sequentially in a so-called “integrated sub-model” framework.In the sequential method, (i) mapping of the results from one state to another is performed in a tedious and inefficient process, (ii) the concurrent occurrence of resin flow and stress development is ignored, (iii) the history of pressure during the flow regime of processing is relinquished, and (iv) the local spatial and temporal variations in resin gelation is not captured. Incorporating the main steps of process modeling into a unified module that captures the various phenomena in a continuous manner would help overcome the foregoing drawbacks of the sequential approach.In this thesis, a new methodology is presented to integrate the simulation of resin and gas flow and stress development into a unified computational modelling framework. The governing equations are developed for the general case of a composite system that initially is regarded as a three-phase liquid-gas-solid system and, as a consequence of curing, the resin undergoes a transition from a fluid-like state into an elastic solid forming a solid cured composite material. The employed constitutive equations provide a continuous representation of the evolving material behaviour while maintaining consistency with the formulations that are typically used to represent the material at each of the two processing extremes. The model is implemented in a 2D plane strain displacement-velocity-pressure (u-v-P) finite element code developed in MATLAB. Various numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the capability of the Integrated Flow-Stress (IFS) model to predict the flow-compaction and stress development throughout the curing process of thermoset composite materials. The interactive effects of resin flow, gas flow, and stress development are investigated and comparisons are made with the predicted results obtained from the application of the stress model alone.

View record

An efficient virtual testing framework to simulate the progression of damage in notched composite laminates (2017)

The progression of damage in composite laminates is influenced by the interactions of several failure/damage mechanisms including matrix cracking, fibre breakage, splitting and delamination. In capturing detailed prediction of various damage modes, it is important to maintain the efficiency of the computational models so that they can be readily used by engineers for damage tolerant design of composite components. Continuum damage models are commonly employed to simulate the smeared response of certain failure modes such as matrix cracking and fibre failure due to their higher numerical efficiency in comparison with discrete damage models. However, application of continuum damage based models for accurate prediction of the onset and propagation of macro-discrete damage modes (i.e. splitting and delamination) and their interactions with other failure modes is limited. This work presents an efficient methodology to capture the interacting effect of discrete and smeared cracks based on a combination of the continuum and discrete approaches. Here, delamination is the only damage mode captured by a discrete approach (cohesive zone interface), while all intra-laminar forms of damage including splitting are modelled using the non-local composite damage model (CODAM2) in a mesoscopic context. Through placement of discrete delamination interfaces and synchronizing the onsets of delamination and matrix cracks, the computational effort is markedly reduced. The effect of ply thickness and constraints imposed by neighbouring plies on initiation of intra-laminar matrix damage modes is also considered. A novel methodology involving a combination of physical and virtual tests on notched laminates is proposed to calibrate the in-situ fracture energies of intra-laminar damage modes.The numerical simulations are conducted using an enhanced version of CODAM2, implemented in the explicit finite element software, LS-DYNA, as a user-defined model (UMAT), together with a built-in tie-break cohesive interface in LS-DYNA to model delamination. The proposed approach is validated using various layups and notched specimen geometries under tensile loading. The reasonable agreement of the predictions with experiments in terms of global behaviour and detailed damage patterns proves the efficiency and applicability of the presented methodology for damage tolerant assessment of composite laminates. 

View record

Crystallization and thermo-viscoelastic modelling of polymer composites (2017)

Process models of composite materials are useful tools for understanding the effect of process parameters and variables and reducing manufacturing risks and costs. The sub-model approach for process modelling has been applied to thermoset composites since the early 1980s. In this approach, analysis is performed with different sub-models such as thermochemical, flow, void and stress, and the analysis results are sequentially transferred from one sub-model to the next, until the analysis is complete. In recent years there has been growing use of high performance thermoplastics such as PEEK and PEKK in aircraft structures, and hence process models for thermoplastics are increasingly of interest.During processing of thermoplastic materials, the material undergoes both melting and crystallization. Therefore a major component of the thermochemical/thermophysical sub-model for process modelling of thermoplastics is the crystallization/melt kinetics model. Most of the crystallization kinetics models in the literature are only valid for either constant temperatures or cooling at constant cooling rates. Furthermore, the number of melt kinetics models is very limited and their application restricted to small heating rates. As a material point in the part may undergo complex temperature cycles, a rate-type crystallization/melt kinetics model which is independent of the temperature cycle is desired.Another problem in processing is development of residual stresses and distortions, which are analyzed in the stress sub-model using mechanical response constitutive models such as thermo-elastic, CHILE and viscoelastic. Most thermoplastic materials such as PEEK are indeed viscoelastic, however their unrelaxed values of moduli are temperature dependent, ie their behaviour is ‘thermo-rheologically complex’.In this thesis the crystallization and melt behaviour of PEEK carbon fibre composites is investigated using DSC experiments. A rate type crystallization kinetics model is developed for prediction of degree of crystallinity during crystallization process. A concept of ‘master melt curve’ is introduced and is used along with the crystallization kinetics model for prediction of crystallinity change during an arbitrary process. Thermo-viscoelastic behaviour of the material is studied using DMA experiments. A thermo-viscoelastic (TVE) constitutive model is developed and is generalized to three dimensional cases. Some case studies are analyzed and validity of models are investigated.

View record

Adaptive Insertion of Cohesive Elements for Simulation of Delamination in Laminated Composite Materials (2016)

Composite materials are increasingly being used in advanced structural ap- plications. Debonding of adjacent laminate layers, also known as delamination, is considered to be one of the most dominant damage mechanisms affecting the behavior of composite laminates. Various numerical methods for simulating delamination in composite materials do exist, but they are generally limited to small-scale structures due to their complexity and high numerical cost. In this thesis, a novel technique aimed to allow efficient simulation of delamination in large-scale laminated composite structures is presented. During the transient analysis, continuum elements within regions where delamination has the potential to initiate are adaptively split through their thickness into two shell elements sandwiching a cohesive element. By elimi- nating the a priori requirement to implant cohesive elements at all possible spatial locations, the computational efforts are reduced, thus lending the method suitable for treatment of practical size structures. The methodol- ogy, called the local cohesive zone method (LCZ), is verified here through its application to Mode-I, Mode-II and Mixed-Mode loading conditions, and is validated using a dynamic tube-crushing loading case and plate impact events. Good agreement between the numerical results and the available experimental data is obtained. The results obtained using the LCZ method are compared favourably with the numerical results obtained using the con- ventional cohesive zone method (CZM). The numerical performance of the method and its efficiency is investi- gated. The efficiency of the method was found to be superior compared to that of the conventional CZM, and was found to increase with increasing model size. The LCZ method is shown to have a lower effect on reducing the structural stiffness of the structure, compared to the conventional CZM. The results obtained from the application of the LCZ method to the various cases tested are encouraging, and prove that the local and adaptive insertion of cohesive zones into a finite element mesh can effectively capture the delamination crack propagation in laminated composite structures. It is expected that further improvements in speed and accuracy will be attained once the algorithm is embedded within commercial finite element solvers as a built-in feature.

View record

Efficient Multi-Scale Modelling of Viscoelastic Composites with Different Microstructures (2014)

Modern composites such as advanced fibre-reinforced and strand-based wood composites are increasingly being used in the new generation of aerospace and civil engineering structures. The structural analysis of such composites often requires knowledge of their effective (homogenized) properties. Several micromechanical models have been developed and are available in the literature for predicting the effective elastic properties of fibre-reinforced solid composites. However, the underlying assumptions in these models somewhat limit their application in solving some practical problems related to the viscoelastic behaviour of composite materials. Two seemingly different classes of composites, i.e. thermoset fibre-reinforced composites and strand-based wood composites with distinct viscoelastic properties are considered in this work due to their wide application in aerospace and construction industry. For viscoelastic analysis of such materials, aspects which require further investigations at the micro-scale are identified first. Specifically, available analytical micromechanics models are extended to predict the shear properties of thermoset fibre-reinforced composites during cure where the resin evolves from a viscous fluid to a viscoelastic solid. For strand-based composites consisting of high volume fraction of orthotropic wood strands, analytical micromechanics models are developed. These models are employed for predicting the effective elastic and viscoelastic properties of strand-based composites. The validity ranges of these models are then examined using experimental data or numerical reference solutions that employ the computational homogenization technique.To enable viscoelastic analysis of large scale composite structures with generally orthotropic properties, an efficient and easy-to-implement approach in the context of 3-D multi-scale modelling, is presented. A multi-scale modelling framework involving analyses at different scales for composites with two difference microstructures is developed and implemented in a general purpose finite element code, ABAQUS®. The accuracy of the developed multi-scale approach is demonstrated for some practical applications involving MOE (apparent modulus of elasticity in bending) prediction of strand-based wood composites. Using this approach, the effect of microstructural parameters (e.g. fibre geometry, orientation, waviness, volume fraction, etc.) on the time-dependent macroscopic response of orthotropic composite structures can be investigated, quantitatively.

View record

Integrating resin flow and stress development in process modeling of themostat composites (2013)

The usual approach to the process modeling of thermoset matrix composites is to divide the analysis into two distinct and sequential steps, first of flow-deformation behaviour and then of stress-deformation. In the current processing models, each of these two aspects is dealt with in a separate sub-model, typically called the flow module and stress module respectively. The flow module is relevant to the pre-gelation behaviour of resin, while the stress module is valid for the post-gelation composite material. In this thesis, the framework to integrate the flow and the stress modules into a unified module in finite element processing models is presented. The work is based on a two-phase model for analysis of resin flow and its resulting deformations in the composite material. Special measures are introduced to provide for additional capability of this model to account for the development of stresses in the curing composite material. These modifications are needed to ensure the accuracy of the model in both of resin flow and stress development regimes, and include the introduction of consistent compressibility in the mass conservation equation of the two-phase system, and a special decomposition of stresses of the system.The formulation is implemented for a pseudo-viscoelastic stress model in a 2D plane strain FE code in MATLAB. The approach may readily be extended to fully viscoelastic models. Various examples from single-element problems dealing with the development of residual stresses throughout a single-hold cure cycle to more geometrically complex composite laminates undergoing standard cure cycles are modeled by the integrated model and comparisons are made in one extreme to the flow-compaction behaviour by the standard flow models, and in the other extreme to the results obtained by the pseudo-viscoelastic approach.The model developed here is a promising tool for simulating processing of large-scale composite structures continuously from the very early stages of the process when the resin behaves in a fluid-like manner all the way to the final stage when it behaves as a 3D solid.

View record

A non-local approach to simulation of damage in composite structures (2011)

Fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) are one of the fastest growing materials in advanced structural applications. Due to the complexity and existence of multiple and interactive modes of failure, there is a lack of comprehensive theory that describes the damage behaviour of these materials. The UBC Composite Damage Model (CODAM) is a sub-laminate based model that is designed to simulate the behaviour of laminated composites at the macro (structural) scale. Physical basis and numerical robustness are the main objectives of CODAM development. The original formulation of CODAM that was developed in the mid 1990’s suffers from material objectivity problem that results in spurious dependency of numerical predictions on the choice of the coordinate system. In this thesis, the objectivity issue of the original CODAM is identified and addressed through a new formulation called CODAM2. The new formulation is capable of predicting damage in various laminate lay-ups from quasi-isotropic to unidirectional. It is also capable of simulating the damage-induced orthotropy in the laminate. An orthotropic non-local averaging scheme is developed for CODAM2 to address the localization issue. Compared to isotropic averaging, the orthotropic scheme significantly improves the predicted crack direction and damage pattern in composite laminates. Unlike the conventional isotropic non-local averaging that performs the averaging over a circular (spherical in 3D) zone, in the orthotropic scheme the averaging is performed over an elliptical zone which requires the introduction of two length scales. The performance of CODAM2 equipped with orthotropic averaging is demonstrated through numerical examples. It is shown that the developed model is capable of accurately predicting the damage behaviour in various specimen geometries from sharp-notched to blunt-notched and open-hole specimens. The predictions of the model in terms of load-displacement, crack-tip position, damage height and crack directions agree well with experimental observations and measurements. CODAM2 provides a promising numerical tool to simulate the effect of damage on the behaviour of structures made of laminated composites. This model is computationally efficient and yet relatively simple to understand, calibrate and use in practical applications.

View record

Duration-of-load and creep effects in thick MPB strand based wood composite (2010)

British Columbia (BC) is in the midst of the largest outbreak of the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) ever recorded in western Canada. Technologies capable of converting stained lumber into market acceptable products are urgently required to reduce the impact of the growing volume of MPB killed lumber on the profitability of forestry in BC.New, thick MPB strand-based structural composite products can be produced and help absorb a large volume of MPB wood. With appropriate mechanical properties, such products can be used as beams, headers, and columns in the low-rise commercial, multi-family residential and single family residential markets.This work was focused on the duration-load and creep behaviour of thick MPB strand-based wood composite. The beam specimens were made in the Timber Engineering and Applied Mechanics Laboratory at UBC. A series of tests were conducted on the matched groups to investigate the creep-rupture behaviour. These investigations comprised of ramp load tests at three loading rates, long-term constant load tests at two stress levels and cyclic bending tests at six stress levels. A damage accumulation model was developed to study the creep-rupture behaviour. This model stipulates that the rate of damage growth is given in terms of the current strain rate and the previously accumulated damage, and a 5-parameter rheological model is applied to describe the viscoelastic constitutive relationship to represent the time-dependent strain, while the damage accumulation law acts as the failure criterion. The results of the long-term constant load tests were then interpreted by means of the creep-rupture model which had been shown to be able to represent the time-dependent deflection and time-to-failure data for different stress levels. The predictions of the model were verified using results from ramp load tests at different loading rates and results from cyclic loading tests at different stress levels. The creep-rupture model incorporates the short term strength of the material, the load history and predicts the deflection history as well as the time-to-failure. As it is a probabilistic model, it allows its incorporation into a time-reliability study of wood composites’ applications.

View record

Extracting the strain-softening response of composites using full-field displacement measurement (2010)

From both numerical and experimental standpoints, it is very desirable to develop a general methodology that can be used to determine the strain-softening response and characteristic damage properties (e.g. fracture energy, damage height) of quasi-brittle materials. In the absence of a direct methodology, one has to conduct multiple experiments combined with trial-and-error procedures and/or simplifying assumptions regarding the damaging behaviour of the material in order to construct a strain-softening curve.In this study, a new methodology is developed that directly identifies the damaging constitutive response of composite materials using full-field measurements of kinematic variables. Using this methodology, the damage related properties can be extracted and the strain-softening response of composite materials under mode I loading can be obtained directly. Compared to other available indirect approaches, this method invokes fewer assumptions about the behaviour of the material and does not require any prior assumption regarding the shape of the constitutive response, as is required in other approaches.A series of compact compression and over-height compact tension tests are conducted on IM7/8552 quasi-isotropic laminates. Using the digital image correlation technique, full-field displacement vectors of the specimen surface are measured in each test. Based on the acquired data and using the basic principles of mechanics (equilibrium and compatibility), a family of approximate stress-strain curves are obtained. These approximate curves are then used in an iterative process to determine the optimized strain-softening response of the laminate. To validate the capability of the method to capture the local damaging behaviour of the composite laminate, a series of destructive tests such as deplying and sectioning are performed on the damaged specimens. The tested laminates are also simulated using finite element analyses of the specimens that employ the extracted strain-softening curve as input to a damage mechanics based material model. The proposed methodology provides insight into the details of damage propagation in composite materials and is a promising tool for characterizing the strain-softening behaviour of composite laminates in a relatively easy and direct manner.

View record

Efficient finite element response sensitivity analysis and applications in composites manufacturing (2009)

This thesis presents the development, implementation, and application of response sensitivities in numerical simulation of composite manufacturing. The sensitivity results include both first- and second-order derivatives. Such results are useful in many applications. In this thesis, they are applied in reliability analysis, optimization analysis, model validation, model calibration, as well as stand-alone measures of parameter importance to gain physical insight into the curing and stress development process. In addition to novel derivations and implementations, this thesis is intended to facilitate and foster increased use of response sensitivities in engineering analysis. The work presented in this thesis constitutes an extension of the direct differentiation method (DDM). This is a method that produces response sensitivities in an efficient and accurate manner, at the one-time cost of deriving and implementing sensitivity equations alongside the ordinary response algorithm. In this thesis, novel extensions of the methodology are presented for the composite manufacturing problem. The derivations include all material, geometry, and processing parameters in both the thermochemical and the stress development algorithms. A state-of-the-art simulation software is developed to perform first-order sensitivity analysis for composite manufacturing problems using the DDM. In this software, several novel techniques are employed to minimize the computational cost associated with the response sensitivity computations. This sensitivity-enabled software is also used in reliability, optimization, and model calibration applications. All these applications are facilitated by the availability of efficient and accurate response sensitivities.The derivation and implementation of second-order sensitivity equations is a particular novelty in this thesis. It is demonstrated that it is computationally feasible to obtain second-order sensitivities (the “Hessian matrix”) by the DDM for inelastic finite element problems. It is demonstrated that the direct differentiation approach to the computation of first- and second-order response sensitivities becomes increasingly efficient as the problem size increases, compared with the less accurate and less efficient finite different approach.

View record

Master's Student Supervision

Theses completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest theses.

A process simulation framework for continuous resistance welding of thermoplastic composites (2024)

Thermoplastic composites are increasingly being used in aerospace applications where a significant benefit is the ability to implement fusion bonding techniques (welding). Continuous resistance welding (CRW), a promising form of fusion bonding, uses a movable apparatus to incrementally heat sections of a resistive implant placed between parts by imposing electrical current and pressure to melt and fuse the interface. Precise temperature control is necessary to melt the polymer matrix while avoiding degradation however, direct in-situ measurement is invasive. Additionally, parameters such as boundary conditions, substructure properties, or part geometry may vary along the length of the weld. Therefore, a physics-based simulation framework using a systems definition was developed to determine appropriate pressure, power, and speed inputs required to achieve optimal results. Previously validated melt/crystallization kinetic models for the PEEK thermoplastic matrix were used to determine a quality metric for weld simulations based on prediction of melting and degradation. Analyzing the model outputs revealed a high degree of non-uniform heating both across the width (edge effects) and length of the weld with significant pre-heating providing insight into complications for potential control schemes. A parametric study was conducted and found the electrical parameters to be highly sensitive to thermal behaviour, especially the contact resistance of the electrode blocks. However, the thermal materials and boundary conditions were generally less sensitive or insensitive, including latent heat of melting allowing for decoupling of melting kinetics to simplify model implementation. Demonstration of the digital twin using the melt prediction quality metric was shown to successfully mitigate typical processing complications including boundary conditions, material changes, and a process stoppage. Future work is recommended to mitigate the non-uniform heating and uncertainty of the electrical parameters as well as utilize the framework to develop reduced order models to achieve accurate, fast simulation predictions for real-time control of the welding process.

View record

Experimental determination of complex heat transfer coefficient patterns using statistical inference (2024)

The development of thermal management and physics-based process simulation of composites has become well-established in recent years. However, the determination of the boundary conditions in the form of heat-transfer coefficients (HTCs) at the air-part and air-tool interfaces during convective heat transfer-based curing processes (like autoclaves, ovens) remain a challenge and a major source of uncertainties. Typically, physics-based approaches like simplified 1D through-thickness models or computationally intensive 3D simulation tools such as Computational Fluid Dynamics are used to estimate the HTCs. However, these deterministic methods are not equipped to capture the effect of uncertainties involved in estimating HTC values and their effects on the corresponding thermal histories of curing parts in process simulations models. The applicability of statistical inference-based models to calculate HTC distributions and associated uncertainties have been previously explored using synthetic datasets generated from finite element simulations. In this study, this validated model has been utilized on available experimental datasets to determine the most probable HTC distributions with an estimate of associated uncertainties. The HTC distributions were thereafter used in process simulation models to understand the effect of uncertainty propagation on tool-part thermal response for optimizing thermocouple placement strategy. This study also explores the development and use of virtual thermocouples, which can be used to better monitor thermal histories of complete parts during manufacturing without requiring the need for intensive instrumentation of the physical part. This work provides insight to the development of a workflow for capturing procedures of uncertainty quantification and propagation in autoclave-based curing processes of composites manufacturing.

View record

Numerical Modeling of Orthogonal Cutting of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites (2016)

The focus of this study is on the orthogonal cutting of fibre reinforced composites. A thorough review of the literature is presented in both experimental and numerical work that has thus far been conducted. It is found that in orthogonal cutting of composites, cutting forces, chip formation mechanism and the extent of damage below the cutting plane are highly dependent on the fibre orientation. With fibre orientation increasing from 0° to 90°, cutting forces tend to increase and chips become more dust-like.Two modeling approaches are most commonly adopted for the prediction of force and chip formation, namely the micro-mechanical and the macro-mechanical approach; in the former, the fibre and the matrix are modeled as separate phases and their interface is defined by a traction-separation law. In the latter, the composite is represented by an anisotropic equivalent homogeneous material. It is shown that the numerical predictions are in good agreement with experimental results. With ABAQUS being the most commonly used tool for modeling of composite orthogonal cutting, a two-dimensional macro-mechanical model for cutting of CFRP was created in ABAQUS using Hashin’s damage model. The cutting forces were predicted for fibre orientations of 0°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 90° and 135°. Good prediction of cutting forces with the available experimental data in the literature was obtained. The model however fails to predict the complete chip formation mechanism due to limitations in the material model. A similar model was developed in LS-Dyna using MAT_054 for composites. The cutting forces were found to be sensitive to the damage input parameters, mainly the strain-to-failure of the elements. However, the complete chip formation and chip release was captured in this model which correlated well with the experimental observations. It is suggested that for improved modeling capability, better understanding of the damage behaviour of FRP, especially at the micro-scale is needed. Also, the existing work is found to be limited to orthogonal cutting and drilling separately; it is however worth looking into both items in one study and linking the two processes through a geometric transformation which is the established framework in metal machining.

View record

Integration of Process Simulation with Damage Modelling of Composite Laminates using Layerwise Elements (2015)

During the last decades, several simulation models have been introduced in numerical modelling of composite structures. Research works in this area are focused on either manufacturing process or in-service behaviour analysis of composite materials. Although, these two phenomena are not separable and the effects of curing process on in-service behaviour of composite material is inevitable in practice, process-induced residual stresses are rarely considered in the in-service analysis of materials.The main objective of this research is to combine the process simulation and in-service analysis of composite materials within a common finite element framework. This would make it possible to model a complete life cycle of composite material from the beginning of the curing process all the way to its failure. In this approach the process-induced residual stresses are carried over to the in-service analysis and failure of the material. The model is implemented in an existing framework for process modelling developed at UBC Composites Group.Minimizing computational cost and accuracy are two important objectives in modelling of composite structures and usually there is a trade-off between these two objectives. In this research with the objective of minimizing computational cost and having the capability of capturing through-thickness stresses accurately, the Layerwise element is selected for the finite element modelling framework. The performance of the integrated process/damage simulation framework is tested through modelling of flat curved composite laminates that undergo various processing (cure) cycles and are subsequently subjected to mechanical loads.

View record

Implementation and evaluation of a coupled thermal-structural analysis module for laminated composites in an open-source finite element code (2010)

The aerospace industry invests heavily in the design and manufacture of composite materials. Aircraft components are produced by placing unprocessed composite materials in an autoclave and applying heat and pressure. The desired part geometry is achieved by forming raw composite materials around a tool, typically made of aluminum or other metal. Throughout the cure cycle, temperature changes cause the part and tool to expand at different rates. This differential expansion, combined with composite material properties that evolve over time, produces residual stresses in the part and leads to geometric instabilities (warpage) upon removal from the tool. Excessive warpage can render a part unusable. Errors of this nature can be quite costly, particularly in the aerospace industry where the tools created can be very large. A strong desire exists to predict the warpage and residual stresses imposed by the curing process and incorporate these stresses in the structural design of a component. To accomplish this goal for complex geometries, special additions to the finite element method are required.Commercial finite element programs provide some flexibility for users to implement custom elements and materials. Though, this flexibility has limits: some material models, such as non-local damage models, cannot be incorporated in proprietary software.This work selects an open-source finite element program and implements the ability to model curing processes of composite materials. The thermal and structural equations are solved in a coupled manner during each time step. This contrasts previous work by the UBC Composites Group, wherein the heat equation is solved over the entire model before the structural equations are considered. Numerous verification models are run to confirm the implementation, along with several example problems. Recommendations are made for further work to improve the process modeling and facilitate a link to subsequent structural models.Ultimately, the code produced represents the first step in seamlessly modeling composite structures during manufacturing processes through to in-service conditions.

View record

 

Membership Status

Member of G+PS
View explanation of statuses

Program Affiliations

 

If this is your researcher profile you can log in to the Faculty & Staff portal to update your details and provide recruitment preferences.

 
 

Sign up for an information session to connect with students, advisors and faculty from across UBC and gain application advice and insight.