Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FiBreMoD (Fibre break models for designing novel composite microstructures and applications)

Teaser

Limiting the climate change-induced temperature increase to less than 2°C will require strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Lightweight materials and fibre-reinforced composites in particular, are a key enabling technology to achieve this goal. Current composite...

Summary

Limiting the climate change-induced temperature increase to less than 2°C will require strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Lightweight materials and fibre-reinforced composites in particular, are a key enabling technology to achieve this goal. Current composite applications are however strongly overdesigned due to a lack of reliable design tools and predictive models for their mechanical properties. Developing, using and applying these models requires interdisciplinary researchers with a strong background in both modelling and experiments, but such researchers are scarce. The 9 beneficiaries and 3 partner organisations in FiBreMoD are currently training 13 such researchers to become multi-talented and interdisciplinary researchers that will be highly coveted in the field of composites. They are being trained by leading experts with world-class facilities and supported by a strong industry participation and an extensive international network. The training programme places a strong emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation skills not only by dedicated workshops but also by the involvement of the researchers in potential commercialisation. This approach is a key to improving the EU’s innovation capacity.

Work performed

The researchers are advancing state-of-the-art composite failure models to reach the required levels of accuracy and develop advanced and industry-friendly characterisation techniques for measuring input data. The goal is to enable blind predictions, which means that parameter fitting or tuning of the models is no longer required. The work has been progressing according to the original design of the FiBreMoD’s research program, which has proven to be successful in ensuring maximal interactions between partners and a holistic approach to the challenge at hand. Several innovations are on the way, including unique data sets for properties of composite constituents, multi-scale models suitable for industrial use, new approaches to account for the presence of defects, time and temperature dependent effects, cyclic loading and high-fidelity ultrafast in-situ computed tomography methodologies for validation of the models. These advances are currently being applied to design hybrid, bio-inspired and discontinuous fibre composites, as well as practical applications such as pressure vessels and automotive parts in direct collaboration with industry.

Final results

European innovation capacity is strengthened by advancing the measurement, prediction and understanding of carbon fibre composites. The FiBreMoD has started the second version of the international benchmarking exercise for longitudinal strength models of unidirectional fibre-reinforced composites with the results to appear in open access. On the side of the training, FiBreMoD has integrated PhD studies on carbon fibre composites throughout Europe. It has created an “invisible college” on this strategically important topic through collaborative research, intertwined secondments and interconnected trainings. An important feature of the created network is strong and active participation of industry and inclusion of the industry in doctoral studies. The researchers trained within such a network have a higher probability to drive innovations and create spin-offs or start-ups in the future. They will pass on this mindset to their future work environments ensuring a long-lasting effect.

Website & more info

More info: http://fibremodproject.eu/.