Scope

International Institute for Multifunctional Materials for Energy Conversion (IIMEC)

2012 SUMMER SCHOOL

IN ADVANCED COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Technological Education Institute of Serres, Greece

July 2 – 6, 2012

 

The mission of IIMEC is to establish a communications, knowledge-base, and computational / laboratory grid that will:

  • Advance research in multifunctional materials for efficient energy conversion.
  • Provide students and faculty from the US and participating countries with global research and international leadership experience.
  • Contribute to the transformation and advancement of materials education in all participating countries.

The 2012 IIMEC Summer School is focused on:


ADVANCED COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Light, strong, and corrosion-resistant, composite materials are being used in a wide variety of products. However, the complexity of failure of composite-structured assemblies represents a major challenge, and the problems are too complicated and too interactive to find a solution by practical testing. At present, the only way forward is judicious testing coupled with well-substantiated computer modeling; hence, university groups and research institutes are strongly involved in the activities of modern Composite Materials Engineering, by developing virtual testing procedures with the aid of finite element methods.

In fact, finite element models which take into account load transfer between single broken fibers and their neighbors, can predict the tensile failure quite well. Recent advances in this area have allowed also the inclusion of complex constitutive equations and their manipulation with fast computers. As a consequence, the agreement between simulations and experiments is now very good.

 

 

The scope of this one-week Summer School is to familiarize students with the state of the art in advanced composite material damage and failure analysis, as well as in fatigue theory and novel simulation methods. In this sense, this school should be considered as introductory.

The target audience for the 2012 IIMEC Summer School is composed of students and junior researchers (postdocs, IIMEC junior faculty) interested in learning more about the virtual testing procedures of Composite Materials Engineering, focusing on the methods and the techniques used to simulate damage and failure of composite-structured assemblies.

The idea is for each day to have a theoretical session in the morning, followed by hands-on computer simulations in the afternoon. The computational resources, necessary to carry out the hands-on sessions, will be provided by the organizers based on specifications of the instructors. Interactions among participants is fundamental to achieve the full potential of the Summer School and social activities will be planned to provide ample opportunity to exchange experiences and ideas as well as to initiate collaborations that can be fostered within the IIMEC program.