Innovations in Designing Damage Tolerant Rotorcraft Components by Interface Tailoring

Global Engineering and Materials, Inc. (GEM) along with its team member, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M), propose to develop printed polymer reinforcement via additive manufacturing to provide patterns at the interlaminar regions in traditional prepreg composites with the goal of improving their interlaminar properties under mixed mode loading. Two key components will be performed under the Phase I study: 1) fabrication and testing of interface modified laminate composite coupons under static loading; and 2) a micro-macro simulation model for performance evaluation of composite laminates with enhanced ply interfaces. The proposed technique is particularly attractive for imparting spatially varying interlaminar reinforcements through computer aided design for mitigating damage at the interlaminar regions under diverse loading conditions. Processing, fabrication, and testing will be performed to explore fused deposition modeling for printed reinforcements with various patterns to resist interface failure under mixed mode loading. The validated micro-macro modeling approach along with the progressive damage description will be used to characterize the undulated delamination growth with additional energy dissipation. This combined experimental and numerical study will construct an optimal design framework to achieve performance informed interface tailoring. A suite of demonstration studies will be performed using coupon testing data.