Subventions et des contributions :

Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier. (2017-2018 à 2022-2023)

Mechanical and structural components made of lightweight fiber-reinforced composite materials are increasingly being used in mechanical, automotive, aerospace, power generation and transmission including green energy, sporting equipment, recreational, and civil infrastructure engineering applications. However, in vast majority of such applications, applications to static and quasi-static components have been fully developed to the required reliability and safety levels. Also such components have been optimized for high performance. This is not the case with dynamic components. The reason for this limitation is that the dynamic response and associated instabilities of composite components under the time-varying service loadings encountered in such applications have not yet been adequately studied and understood.

The applicant has developed a long-term research program to address this limitation and with the goal of conception, design and development of innovative high-performance composite components for practical applications. The long-term objectives of this research program have been: (1) To conceptualize safe, reliable, cost-effective, innovative and high-performance composite components and structures; (2) To determine accurately the critical failures, dynamic response, and dynamic instabilities of such components and structures; (3) To develop optimal cost-saving designs for desired reliability, safety and performance requirements of such components and structures. Significant progress has been made in the research program over the past two decades. Over the next five years, intensive and innovative research on a certain specific class of advanced composite structures, called “tapered composite structures” will be conducted. Emphasis will be placed on rotating tapered composite beams and spinning shafts, and flat and curved composite plates. Samples of such composite beams and plates will be manufactured and tested for vibration response and failures. Advanced computational modeling and the stress, dynamic and failure analyses for design of such structures will be conducted. The cost-effective design of innovative composite beams, shafts and plates will be performed.

A number of undergraduate and graduate students will be recruited and trained in the research. Industrial collaboration and international networking will be actively sought and used. The proposed research will serve significantly the Canadian engineering industries in making them even more globally competitive and profitable, and hence contributes significantly to the economic development of Canada. It also serves the Canadian academic sector in attracting and training globally-competitive, highly skilled, and very talented students and engineers. High quality cutting-edge research will be conducted and published in international research media and meetings.