Blurring the lines between materials design and structural design: Advanced microstructural design of structural fibre-reinforced composites

Many breakthroughs in traditional materials have been achieved through time-consuming and expensive trial-and-error. To develop the next generation of lightweight composites, a paradigm shift is needed to catalyse their adoption in industry and address current drawbacks. Rather than accepting that the microstructure is a consequence of the manufacturing process, I envision that we should aim to design the microstructure to optimally satisfy the structural requirements and modify the manufacturing process accordingly. This strategy would blur the lines between material design and structural design, which are traditionally seen as two separate entities. It has the potential to lead to a step-change in the performance of composite materials, allowing us to create materials with properties that are currently mutually exclusive. Use cases for these new composite materials are numerous, as society is in strong need of lightweight solutions in a broad variety of disciplines.

Keywords:Composites, Microstructural design, Virtual testing

Disciplines:Polymer composites, Hybrid composites