Welcome to the QuAID³ webpage

Motivation and scope

Additively Manufactured (3d printed) fibre reinforced composite (AMC) components built via fused deposition modelling rapidly find applications within the European aerospace, and transport sectors, due to their well-known advantages, e.g., less machine, material, and labour costs, less manufacturing waste, and usage of more efficient materials. A drawback of fibre reinforced AMC components is their typically complex and in cases tessellated geometry; this gives rise to complex and largely understudied damage mechanisms that deviate from theusual “high strength and ductile metal” paradigm. The tessellated geometry of printed components, i.e., components that do not emerge from a mould, results in multiple, largely uncertain, locations of damage initiation, especially when examining the case of fatigue. Furthermore, damage patterns in fibre reinforced composites emanate across different length scales that perplex the physics of the problem and render its computational implementation intractable. Given these facts, the problem of quantifying the effect of defects emanating from the manufacturing procedure due to e.g., geometry imperfections, micro-cracks, porous inclusions, can only be assessed retrospectively through physical testing and monitoring. Ideally, such effects should be accounted for at the design phase leading to proper considerations been made at the manufacturing cycle. There exists no procedure to perform such analysis yet.

Our Research Objectives

We firmly believe that the derivation of new, robust and high-fidelity fracture theories and their interaction with data driven simulation methods will result in the long overdue “digital tapestry” to highlight those micro-structural properties that dictate the macro-observable response of heterogeneous materials and components while providing reliable estimates of their strength and damage patterns subject to the existence of manufacturing defects. Within this setting, we propose a novel theoretical framework for the Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) of fracture processes in highly anisotropic materials across multiple scales. To achieve this, we aim to deliver a niche theory for the description of fracture processes in anisotropic media across multiple scales and recast it within a stochastic UQ theoretical framework that will accurately account for the inherent uncertainties at the micro-scale that drive damage as this propagates across scales. We will use this UQ framework to train rapid data driven surrogates to eventually delivera near real-time UQ tool for complex material architectures.

The QuAID³ is structured to deliver the following research objectives, i.e.,

RO1: To develop an accurate and robust theory for fatigue induced fractures across multiple length scales for the case of highly anisotropic and heterogeneous deformable domains. This will result the first ever high fidelity simulation framework to accurately resolve fractures of anisotropic domains.

RO2: To develop an accurate and robust computational framework that resolves fractures across multiple scales therefore introducing the first ever fracture simulation framework for 3D printed composites.

RO3: To develop a stochastic multiscale finite element method custom fit for anisotropic fractures hence delivering the first ever intrusive digital tapestry for this set of problems and deliver probabilities of failure and statistics on the corresponding fracture patterns.

RO4: To derive and train data-driven surrogate models using the aforementioned high-fidelity theoretical framework and deliver the first ever near-real time UQ platform for fractures of complex 3D printed components. The platform will be able to rapidly provide prognostics on the probable damage patterns of structural components based on pre-existing defects such as micro-inclusions or discontinuities emanating from the manufacturing process.

– QuAID³ is implemented in the framework of H.F.R.I call “Basic research Financing (Horizontal support of all Sciences)” under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” funded by the European Union –NextGenerationEU (H.F.R.I. Project Number: 15097). –