EMTA’s Evaluation of the Elastic Properties for Fiber Polymer Composites Potentially Used in Hydropower Systems
Fiber-reinforced polymer composites can offer important advantages over metals where lightweight, cost-effective manufacturing and high mechanical performance can be achieved. To date, these materials have not been used in hydropower systems. In view of the possibility to tailor their mechanical properties to specific applications, they now have become a subject of research for potential use in hydropower systems. The first step in any structural design that uses composite materials consists of evaluating the basic composite mechanical properties as a function of the as-formed composite microstructure. These basic properties are the elastic stiffness, stress-strain response, and strength. This report describes the evaluation of the elastic stiffness for a series of common discontinuous fiber polymer composites processed by injection molding and compression molding in order to preliminarily estimate whether these composites could be used in hydropower systems for load-carrying components such as turbine blades. To this end, the EMTA (Copyright © Battelle 2010) predictive modeling tool developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been applied to predict the elastic properties of these composites as a function of three key microstructural parameters: fiber volume fraction, fiber orientation distribution, and fiber length distribution. These parameters strongly control the composite mechanical performance and can be tailored to achieve property enhancement. EMTA uses the standard and enhanced Mori-Tanaka type models combined with the Eshelby equivalent inclusion method to predict the thermoelastic properties of the composite based on its microstructure.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 992373
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-19729; EB4500000; TRN: US201022%%423
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
COMPRESSION
DESIGN
DISTRIBUTION
ELASTICITY
EVALUATION
FIBERS
FLEXIBILITY
MANUFACTURING
MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
MICROSTRUCTURE
MOLDING
ORIENTATION
PERFORMANCE
POLYMERS
SIMULATION
TURBINE BLADES
Hydropower system
discontinuous fiber composite
injection molding
compression molding
elastic stiffness
property prediction
fiber orientation
fiber length distribution
thermoplastic
thermoset