Polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/carbon nanotube (CNT) composite fibers were made using various processing methods such as conventional solution spinning, gel spinning, and bi-component gel spinning. The detailed characterization exhibited that the smaller and longer CNT will reinforce polymer matrix mostly in tensile strength and modulus, respectively. Gel spinning combined with CNT also showed the promising potential of PAN/CNT composite fiber as precursor fiber of the next generation carbon fiber. High resolution transmission electron microscopy showed the highly ordered PAN crystal layer on the CNT, which attributed to the enhanced physical properties. The subsequent carbonization study revealed that carbonized PAN/CNT fibers have at least 50% higher tensile strength and modulus as compared to those of carbonized PAN fibers. Electrical conductivity of CNT containing carbon fiber was also 50% higher than that of carbonized PAN fiber. In order to have carbon fiber with high tensile strength, the smaller diameter precursor fiber is preferable. Bi-component gel spinning produced 1-2 µm precursor fiber, resulting in ~1 µm carbon fiber. The tensile strength of the carbonized bi-component fiber (islands fibers) is as high as 6 GPa with tensile modulus of ~500 GPa. Further processing optimization may lead to the next generation carbon fiber.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Description based on contents viewed July 8, 2009; title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-116).

Thesis--University of Turku, Finland, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--University of Turku, Finland, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Orientador: Raquel Gonçalves / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Agricola / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T00:21:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_SergioAugustoMelloda_D.pdf: 3060293 bytes, checksum: 3514c54e017be522e62c07231642a540 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003 / Resumo: As tecnologias para produção das chapas denominadas ¿Medium Density Fiberboard¿ (MDF), confeccionadas com fibras de madeiras de reflorestamento de baixo custo e resinas fenólicas provenientes de uréia, representam para vários setores industriais uma possibilidade de agregar valores às espécies com pouco interesse comercial, possibilitando para os seguimentos industriais investimento promissores. Um aspecto importante a ser considerado sobre a utilização de resinas fenólicas na confecção de chapas MDF é que produzem emissões tóxicas poluidoras da natureza e nocivas ao ser humano. Dentro deste contexto, de acordo com o ¿Protocolo de Quioto¿ de 1997, os países industrializados precisam diminuir suas emissões combinadas de gases de efeito estufa em pelo menos 5 % até 2012. Considerando-se as exigências do ¿Protocolo de Quioto¿, este trabalho objetivou avaliar o desempenho de chapas MDF confeccionadas com poliuretana (PU) derivada do óleo de mamona, pois este produto apresenta baixos teores de toxidez sendo classificado como não poluente e não tóxico ao ser humano. A caracterização das chapas foi realizada considerando-se a utilização do equipamento de ultra-som da Marca Steinkamp modelo BP7 com transdutoes de 45 kHz e a realização de ensaios físicos e mecânicos propostos pela EuroMDFBoard - EMB. A avaliação desenvolveu-se em três fases distintas: 1. Na fase I foram realizados estudos exploratórios com o objetivo de verificar as características do PU sendo utilizado como adesivo para confecção de chapas de Pinus caribaea. Nesta fase foram confeccionadas chapas com 5 e 10 % de PU3070, que de acordo com a caracterização física e mecânica observou-se que as chapas apresentaram resistências compatíveis com as exigências da EMB, entretanto, a forte exalação de solvente inviabilizou seu manuseio do PU3070. 2. Na fase II foram confeccionadas chapas com fibras de Pinus caribaea e Eucalyptus grandis com uma nova síntese de adesivo, denominada neste trabalho de PU7030. A caracterização física e mecânica determinou valores de resistências compatíveis com as exigências da EMB. Entretanto, verificou-se a necessidade de se ajustar o teor de umidade a temperatura e a pressão de prensagem. 3. Na fase III novas chapas foram confeccionadas com fibras de Pinus caribea e Eucalyptus grandis modificando-se o teor de umidade, a temperatura e a pressão de prensagem. Com o resultado da caracterização física e mecânica, observou-se que as alterações nas umidades, temperatura e pressão de prensagem propiciaram resistências compatíveis com a EMB, com vantagens de utilização de menores teores de PU7030 e diminuição na temperatura de prensagem, representando economia no consumo de energia. Outro aspecto muito importante estudado neste trabalho foi a caracterização das chapas utilizando ensaios não-destrutivos. Neste caso foram realizadas medições, por meio de equipamento de ultra-som, utilizando-se transdutores de faces exponenciais e planas aplicados nas direções x, y e z das chapas. A partir das medições dos tempos de propagação das ondas ultra-sônicas determinaram-se as velocidades das ondas e as constantes dinâmicas das chapas. Estas variáveis foram comparadas com as propriedades de resistência das chapas obtidas nos ensaios estáticos. Em seguida desenvolveu-se análise estatística buscando-se avaliar as correlações entre os resultados de ensaios não-destrutivos e destrutivos tendo sido possível concluir que a utilização dos métodos de ensaios não-destrutivos é viável para inferir sobre as propriedades físicas e mecânicas das chapas. Com relação à utilização da PU7030, concluiu-se que essa poliuretana possibilita a substituição da resina fenólica na confecção das chapas MDF / Abstract: While employing low cost reforestation lumber, the technologies of the fabrication of fiber plates denominated ¿Medium Density Fiberboard¿ (MDF) offer to several industrial sectors the opportunity to aggregate worth to species with little or no commercial interest, opening to them the possibility of promising profitable investments. However, the phenolic resins used in the production of MDF plates are well-known pollutants to the environment and therefore harmful to the human beings in such a way that environmentally friendly alternatives have been eagerly sought. According to that, the present work has been aimed to evaluate the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of MDF manufactured with Polyurethane Adhesive (PU) derived from Castor Oil, due to the low toxicity and to the non-polluting characteristics of the resulting adhesive. The characterization of the plates has been accomplished with the help of Steinkamp BP7 ultrasonic equipment using 45 kHz transducers and the physical and mechanical tests recommended by Euro MDF Board - EMB. The work has been developed along three distinct phases. Initially a better understanding of the characteristics of the polyurethane adhesive derived from castor oil has been acquired. It has been learnt that the adhesive exhibits the main characteristic of a monocomponent synthesis, stabilized by air humidity. During that phase, plates with 5% and 10% of polyurethane adhesive have been manufactured, called Adhesive PU3070 in this work, corresponding to 30% of solids and 70% of solvents. The properties of the plates manufactured with this synthesis have been determined and it has been found that although they have met EMB demands, the strong exhalation of solvent has ruled out its usage for MDF manufacture. As for the second phase, fiber plates have been produced with a new synthesis, called Adhesive PU7030, that is, 70% of solids and 30% of solvents. Again mechanical properties have satisfied EMB regulations. However, during the tests, it has been noticed that in order to control the quality of the final product, a fine adjusting to the values of some important Variables in the manufacture process, such as humidity level, temperature and pressing pressure, would be necessary. Accordingly, in the last phase, using Pinus caribea as fiber material, three experimental conditions have been elaborated, one for each controlled Variable, and repeated again for Eucalyptus gandis. Resulting from the adjusting of the variables, it has been observed that during the manufacture process, plates using much less adhesive than the former standards still have satisfied EMB demands fully, with advantages of a significant decrease in the pressing temperature and the corresponding energy savings. The characterization of the plates using non-destructive tests has been an important feature of the present work. Measurements have been performed in the plates by means of ultrasound equipment, using exponential as well as plane face transducers. From the readings, the propagation times of the ultrasonic waves have been evaluated, allowing to the determination of the propagation velocity of the ultrasonic waves through the material and consequently its dynamic parameters, which have been correlated to the mechanical properties of the plates, by means of a suitable statistic model. It has been concluded from the results that non-destructive test methods could as well be employed for the characterization of the physical and mechanical properties of the plates / Doutorado / Construções Rurais / Doutor em Engenharia Agrícola

The design of composite laminated panels is a combinatorial problem when the orientation of the fibers in each layer is restricted to a discrete pool of angles. Additionally, composite laminates often have many optimal and near-optimal designs, and the designer may benefit by knowing many of those designs. Genetic algorithms are well suited for laminate design because they can handle the combinatorial nature of the problem and they permit the designer to obtain many near-optimal designs. However, their computational cost is high for most structural optimization problems. This work describes several attempts to reduce the cost of optimizing composite laminates using genetic algorithms. First, the use of a genetic algorithm to maximize the buckling load of a fixed thickness composite laminate is studied. Various genetic parameters, including population size, probability of mutation, and probability of crossover are optimized by numerical experiments. A new genetic operator - stack swap - is proposed and shown to be effective in reducing the cost of the optimization. Second, the genetic algorithm is revised and improved for minimum thickness design of composite laminated plates. The influence on the genetic search of the penalty functions enforcing failure constraints is studied. Combining fixed and proportional penalty functions is found to be the most efficient strategy. Improved selection, mutation, and stack swap operators are proposed. The use of an operator called scaling mutation that projects designs towards the feasible domain is investigated. The improvements in the genetic algorithm are shown to reduce the average price of the search by more than 50%. Next, the improved genetic algorithm for minimum thickness laminate design is applied to a more complex wing box-beam optimization problem. Tuning the genetic algorithm on this problem shows that, because the maximum length of a search is limited, the optimal population size does not grow with the size of the design space. If the probability of applying stack swap is reduced with the number of independent laminates in the wing box, stack swap enhances the performance of the genetic search on the wing box -beam problem. Finally, the possibility of running many searches is investigated. It is empirically shown that several short searches can be more efficient than a long one, especially when high levels of reliability are required. An example is given where a genetic algorithm is specifically modified for better efficiency in the context of repeated short runs. A procedure is studied that enables predicting reliability at later stages of the search. / Ph. D.

Le sujet du projet de thèse réalisée en cotutelle entre Laboratoire Roberval à l'Université de Technologie de Compiègne et le Centre de Composites à Haute Performance d'École Polytechnique de Montréal porté sur une proposition de l'architecture du deep learning avec sémantique pour la création automatisée des modèles de la microstructure de matériaux composites à partir d'imagerie de la micrographie aux rayons X. La thèse consiste de trois parties principales : d'abord les méthodes du prétraitement de données microtomographiques sont relevées, avec l'accent sur la segmentation de phases à partir d'images 2D. Ensuite, les propriétés géométriques des éléments de phases sont extraites et utilisées pour classifier et identifier de nouvelles morphologies. Cela est démontré pour le cas de composites chargés par les fibres courtes naturelles. L'approche de classification à l'aide des algorithmes d'apprentissage est reprise pour étudier les défauts dans un composite, mais en ajoutant les aspects spatiaux. En plus, un descripteur de haut niveau "génome de défauts" est introduit, qui permet de comparer l'état de défauts dans les différents échantillons. La deuxième partie introduit la segmentation structurelle sur l'exemple du renfort tissé du composite. La méthode repose sur un modèle du krigeage dual, calibré par l'erreur de segmentation provenant d'algorithme d'apprentissage. Finalement, le modèle krigé est repris pour construire une formulation stochastique du renfort à travers de processus gaussien et la distribution des propriétés physiques de la microstructure est extraite et prête pour la simulation numérique de la fabrication ou du comportement mécanique. / The subject of the thesis project between Laboratoire Roberval at Université de Technologie Compiègne and Center for High-Performance Composites at Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal considered the design of a deep learning architecture with semantics for automatic generation of models of composite materials microstructure based on X-ray microtomographic imagery. The thesis consists of three major parts. Firstly, the methods of microtomographic image processing are presented, with an emphasis on phase segmentation. Then, the geometric features of phase elements are extracted and used to classify and identify new morphologies. The method is presented for composites filled with short natural fibers. The classification approach is also demonstrated for the study of defects in composites, but with spatial features added to the process. A high-level descriptor "defect genome" is proposed, that permits comparison of the state o defects between specimens. The second part of the thesis introduces structural segmentation on the example of woven reinforcement in a composite. The method relies on dual kriging, calibrated by the segmentation error from learning algorithms. In the final part, a stochastic formulation of the kriging model is presented based on Gaussian Processes, and distribution of physical properties of a composite microstructure is retrieved, ready for numerical simulation of the manufacturing process or of mechanical behavior.

Vacuum bags in conjunction with autoclaves are currently employed to generate the consolidation pressures and temperatures required to manufacture aerospace level composites. As the scale of continuous fiber composite structures increases autoclaving becomes prohibitively expensive or impossible. The objective of this work is to develop flexible magnetic clamping structures to increase the consolidation pressure in conventional vacuum bagging of composite laminates, thereby obviating the need for an autoclave. A ferromagnetic rubber, which consists of rubber filled with iron, is being developed as a conformable and reusable vacuum bag that provides increased consolidation through attractive forces produced by electromagnets. Experiments and finite element modeling indicate that consolidation pressure in the range of 100 kPa can be generated by such a device with realistic power requirements. The effects of the magnetic clamping device process parameters on the consolidation pressure magnitude are modeled and characterized. In addition, a method for the efficient design of the magnetic clamping device is developed.

No description available.

Compósitos verdes são caracterizados por possuir matriz polimérica e reforço derivado de fontes naturais. Polímeros derivados do petróleo não são biodegradáveis e possuem solventes orgânicos na sua composição. Solventes orgânicos são tóxicos e poluentes. A poliuretana derivada do óleo de mamona é derivada de fonte renovável, biodegradável e não possui solventes orgânicos em sua composição. A casca de pinhão é um resíduo do pinhão, semente do pinheiro de Paraná. O objetivo desse trabalho é desenvolver e caracterizar o compósito de casca de pinhão com PU derivada do óleo de mamona. A fibra foi caracterizada quimicamente, por FTIR, TGA e MEV. A PU foi caracterizada por ensaio de resistência à flexão, FTIR e TGA e os compósitos, por testes de densidade, absorção de água, inchamento em espessura, resistência à flexão de três pontos, FTIR e TGA. A superfície da fratura foi avaliada por MEV e a homogeneidade dos compósitos por perfil de densidade e raios-X. O compósito de 35%PU apresentou resistência à flexão de 51,55 MPa, densidade de 1018 kg/m³, absorção de água em 24 horas de 7,95% e inchamento em espessura em 24 horas de 5,36%. O material apresenta propriedades mecânicas apropriadas para uso em mobiliário e artesanato. / Polymeric composites reinforced with natural fibers are denominated green composites. Polymers comes from petroleum source, a non-biodegradable material and has volatile organic compounds, VOC, in its composition. Organic solvent are toxics and pollute the environment. The Polyurethane derived from castor oil is polymer produced from renewable sources, biodegradable material and there are no VOC in its composition. Araucária pine nut shell is a residue from its Araucaria pine seed. The aim of this work is to develop and characterize composites of pine nut shell with polyurethane derived from castor oil. The fiber was chemically characterized, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). PU was characterized by flexural strength, FTIR and TGA and composites was characterizes by density test, water absorption and swelling in thickness, flexural strength, FTIR, TGA. SEM evaluated the fracture surface and X-ray and vertical density profile verified the composites homogeneity. 35%PU composites presented flexural strength of 51,55 MPa, density of 1018 kg/m³, 7,95% of 24h water absorption and 5,36% of 24h swelling in thickness of. The material exhibits properties suitable for use in furniture and handicrafts.