The effect of zirconium addition on the microstructure and properties of chopped carbon fiber/carbon composites

Carbon/carbon composites containing zirconium were prepared using chopped carbon fiber, mesophase pitch and Zr powder by the traditional process including molding, carbonization, densification and graphitization. The influence of Zr on the microstructure and properties of the composites were investigated. Results show that Zr can improve the interface bonding, promote more perfect and larger crystallites and enhance the conductive/mechanical properties of the composites. The high in-plane thermal conductivity of 464 W/(m K) and excellent bending strength of 83.6 MPa was obtained for a Zr content of 13.9 wt% at heat treatment temperature(HTT) of 2500 °C. However the conductive/mechanical properties of the composites decrease dramatically for an higher HTT of 3000 °C. SEM micrograph of the fracture surface for the composites shows that lower disorder crystallite arrangement of fiber and carbon matrix come into being in the composites during HTT of 3000 °C, which should be responsible for the low properties. Correlation between the content of Zr and the microstructure and properties are discussed.     

Experiments and simulations of the mechanical performance of repaired panels

Firstly, the compress experiment is undertaken to investigate the efficiency of repaired panels in this paper, and then modeling of the mechanical behavior of the repaired composite panel under compressive static load is conducted by using of the finite element method. The effect of geometric non-linearity on the stress–strain response is considered in the numeric analysis. Fatherly, the user material subroutine (UMAT) is integrated with the ABAQUS package with the geometric non-linearity effect for studying the damage initiation and its progression in the composite structure, and quadrilateral, linear, thick shell elements (S8R) are adopted. Finally, the predicted strain distribution, damage evolution and strength of the laminate are compared with the test results.     

Stress concentration analysis of fibre-reinforced multilayered composites with pin-loaded holes

The problem of stress concentrations in the area of pin-loaded holes is of particular significance in the design of multilayered fibre-reinforced composite structures. For the purpose of simulating such problem zones in anisotropic multilayered composites, analytical methods offer decisive advantages since they, in comparison to numerical methods, allow weighting of influencing parameters and in this way permit a physical interpretation of complicated notch phenomena. At the Institut für Leichtbau und Kunststofftechnik (ILK) sophisticated analytical solution methods for the stress concentration problem in multilayered composites with pin-loaded holes were developed on the basis of layer-related solutions and have been confirmed in numerical calculations.     

Growth and properties of hydrogen-free DLC films deposited by surface-wave-sustained plasma

Hydrogen-free diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited by a new surface-wave-sustained plasma physical vapor deposition (SWP-PVD) system in various conditions. Electron density was measured by a Langmuir probe; the film thickness and hardness were characterized using a surface profilometer and a nanoindenter, respectively. Surface morphology was investigated using an atomic force microscope (AFM). It is found that the electron density and deposition rate increase following the increase in microwave power, target voltage, or gas pressure. The typical electron density and deposition rate are about 1.87 × 10¹¹–2.04 × 10¹² cm^− 3 and 1.61–14.32 nm/min respectively. AFM images indicate that the grain sizes of the films change as the experimental parameters vary. The optical constants, refractive index n and extinction coefficient k, were obtained using an optical ellipsometry. With the increase in microwave power from 150 to 270 W, the extinction coefficient of DLC films increases from 0.05 to 0.27 while the refractive index decreases from 2.31 to 2.11.     

Fiber–fiber interactions in carbon mat thermoplastics

Carbon mat thermoplastics (CMT) consisting of 12.7 mm long, chopped carbon fibers in a polypropylene matrix were manufactured using the wetlay technique at fiber volume fractions (FVF) from 10% to 25%, and tests simulating the compression molding process were conducted. The packing stress of the CMT followed a power law relation with FVF. A single fiber pull-out fixture was used to measure the frictional and hydrodynamic lubrication coefficients at fiber–fiber touch points, and results were fit with an existing relation for glass mat thermoplastics. In isothermal squeeze flow the load–displacement behavior for the 10% FVF CMT was similar in shape to that for a fluid with a yield stress. However, for FVFs of 15–25%, the load–displacement curves showed a load spike at the beginning of the flow, then followed the curve for a fluid with a yield stress. The spike was attributed to fiber breakage that increased with increasing FVF of the sample.     

Conditional probability Markov chain simulation based reliability analysis method for nonnormal variables

Based on fast Markov chain simulation for generating the samples distributed in failure region and saddlepoint approximation(SA) technique,an efficient reliability analysis method is presented to evaluate the small failure probability of non-linear limit state function(LSF) with non-normal variables.In the presented method,the failure probability of the non-linear LSF is transformed into a product of the failure probability of the introduced linear LSF and a feature ratio factor.The introduced linear LSF wh...     

Full-scaled deep metric learning for pedestrian re-identification

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The pedestrian re-identification problem (i.e., re-id) is essential and pre-requisite in multi-camera video surveillance studies, provided the fact that...