ASME Greenville Section: Functionalizing Bistable/Multi-stable CFRP Laminate Structures

Description

Join the Greenville Section and speaker Dr. Oliver J. Myers for a presentation on composite materials. An emerging research area in the field of composite materials focuses on Bistable/Multi-stable Composites. These composites, as the name suggests, have two stable shapes, which include snap through/snap back phenomenon between the two shapes, which makes it a suitable material for using in “Adaptive Structures”. Bistable composites are unsymmetric laminated CFRP that exhibits bistability because of the unsymmetric laminate stacking sequence about the middle surface. In the combination of symmetric and unsymmetric laminates, various standard geometries are split into smaller geometries, each of those smaller geometries are made into symmetric or unsymmetric laminates and different combinations of those symmetric and unsymmetric laminates are studied, to find out the various bistable shapes that are possible in each standard geometry. Numerical simulations and experiments are conducted to determine design constraints for sizes and alternative geometries of bistable laminates. Additionally, much study is necessary to functionalize bistable laminates for morphing structures, particularly incorporating mounting fixtures (boundary conditions) and thicker bistable structures for strength and impact mitigation. Dr. Oliver J. Myers serves as the Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence Undergraduate Studies and is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University. He conducts research in smart material and smart system applications for multi-scale systems, interdisciplinary computational models of mechanical systems, SHM/NDE and integrated design/analysis/prototyping of mechanical devices and systems.