Abstract
Thin plies are well known to suppress or delay crack initiation in loaded composite structures. Thereby allowing for the manufacturing of lighter, stiffer, and more durable composite products. In the current work, composites with both thin and thick plies are designed to meet specific criteria and tested under both in-plane and out-of-plan critical loading conditions. The tests adopted are bolted joint, drop-weight impact, compression after impact, Charpy impact, bending, and bending after thermal aging. The tests were selected to cover critical issues in composite design. The results of the proposed design are compared with that of the traditional composites and show higher improvement in most of the load cases by using thin plies inside the lamination process with the traditional ones. The results showed that the two proposed alternatives with thin plies are of higher advantage for the bolted joints problem. The alternative with thin plies distributed to be surrounding each traditional ply is of high advantage for all the loading cases as a result of the improved in-situ strength.
About the Speaker
Dr. Tamer Sebaey is a professor of manufacturing and design at the College of Engineering at Prince Sultan University. He got his Ph.D. in 2013 from the University of Girona about the optimum selection of stacking sequences for aerospace composites. His main research interest is the mechanics of composite materials including impact, crushing, microscale testing and modeling, and the environmental degradation of FRP composites. His publication record shows almost 100 journal publications and more than 30 international conference communications, with a 28 H-index. He participated in establishing and, currently, is leading the composite structures research activities at the Structures and Materials research lab at the PSU.
By Prof. Tamer Sebaey
- Professor of Manufacturing and Design – College of Engineering – Prince Sultan University.