Gokul Murali
Project description
Shape-memory structures have a wide scope of potential application ranging from deployment of satellites to drag reduction in aircraft. There are several studies taking place worldwide that are investigating the capability of shape memory composites for such applications. Traditionally, shape memory composites are made of at least one specialised shape memory material thus increasing their complexity and decreasing their feasibility. This project will focus on the development of shape memory composites without any shape memory constituents in an attempt to make a commercially viable product.
The aim of this project is to develop and optimise ‘intrinsically heated’ shape memory composites for satellite applications. This project will build upon the earlier works of Prof Paul Robinson (Imperial College London), who will be supervising it. The scope of this project includes the development of the composite, optimisation of structure, and modelling of this phenomenon.
Education
PhD Researcher at Imperial College London (2019-Present)
M.Sc., Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, (2016-2018)
Research interests
High-performance composites, materials characterization techniques, NDT, functional materials, and adhesives technology.
Personal note
Outside of my academic life, I love travelling, personal fitness, watching movies, and reading fantasy fiction books. I also love cooking, and would always be up for a coffee and meeting new people.
Latest blogs by this author
Latest publications by this author
Implementation and parametric study of J-integral data reduction methods for the translaminar toughness of hierarchical thin-ply composites [OPEN ACCESS]
Guillaume Broggi, Joël Cugnoni, Véronique Michaud
Three different J-integral formulations to derive the experimental translaminar toughness of composites from compact tension tests with a large-scale fracture process zone are implemented and discussed. They improve the existing approaches by taking advantage of stereo-digital image correlation to acquire full-field displacement fields. A field fitting procedure based on robust and efficient piecewise cubic smooth splines addresses noise-related issues reported in previous studies. Additionally, the paper proposes a novel crack tip extraction procedure to report the energy release rate as a function of the crack increment, even if knowledge of the crack tip is not required for the proposed J-integral method. The three methods are discussed in light of a parametric study conducted on synthetic and experimental data, including artificially noisy data. The study reveals that the proposed J-integral methods are suitable for translaminar toughness evaluation of a wide range of materials without the need for restrictive assumptions. However, variations in propagation values were observed when applied to experimental data. Finally, guidelines are drawn to chose the most suitable parameters for the algorithms that are proposed as a Python package.
Longitudinal debonding in unidirectional fibre-reinforced composites: Numerical analysis of the effect of interfacial properties
Sina AhmadvashAghbash, Christian Breite, Mahoor Mehdikhani, and Yentl Swolfs
Longitudinal fibre-matrix debonding is governed by interfacial strength, fracture toughness, thermal residual stresses, friction, and matrix plasticity. The proposed finite element model for fibre-matrix longitudinal debonding associated with fibre breakage accounts for these features, retrieving more realistic results for the stress redistribution around a fibre break. In contrast with the majority of the available finite element models, the current model does not impose the debond length and enables debond propagation based on the assigned interfacial properties. Several parametric studies have been performed to assess the effect of input parameters in two configurations: single- and multi-fibre packings. Higher values for interfacial friction coefficient, thermal residual stress and interfacial fracture toughness restrain the debond propagation and consequently accelerate the stress recovery. Conversely, including matrix plasticity facilitates the debond propagation. A prescribed matrix crack, concentric with the broken fibre and as large as thrice the fibre radius, has no significant effect on the extent of the debond but increases the stress concentration on the nearest intact fibres in the multi-fibre model. The results of the proposed finite element model match the reported laser Raman spectroscopy literature data. The current study improves the prediction capability of models for the longitudinal tensile failure of unidirectional composites.
Influence of Test Specimen Geometry on Probability of Failure of Composites Based on Weibull Weakest Link Theory
Rajnish Kumar, Bo Madsen, Hans Lilholt and Lars P Mikkelsen
This paper presents an analytical model that quantifies the stress ratio between two test specimens for the same probability of failure based on the Weibull weakest link theory. The model takes into account the test specimen geometry, i.e., its shape and volume, and the related non-constant stress state along the specimen. The proposed model is a valuable tool for quantifying the effect of a change of specimen geometry on the probability of failure. This is essential to distinguish size scaling from the actual improvement in measured strength when specimen geometry is optimized, aiming for failure in the gauge section. For unidirectional carbon fibre composites with Weibull modulus m in the range 10–40, it can be calculated by the model that strength measured with a straight-sided specimen will be 1–2% lower than the strength measured with a specific waisted butterfly-shaped specimen solely due to the difference in test specimen shape and volume.