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Industry collaborations during that period led to Holmes’s first job, with McDonnell Douglas.  He immediately began efforts to re-establish the consortium relationship between the company and the Center.  “I did it not because I received my education at UD, but because I felt there would be real value to both sides from a stronger strategic collaboration,” he says.

A merger of McDonnell Douglas and Boeing in the late 1990s led to the formation of the Phantom Works as the advanced research and development business unit and “catalyst of innovation” for Boeing.  Headquartered in St. Louis, Phantom Works incorporated the composites group of McDonnell Douglas when the two companies merged. 

“At that time, I organized a network of Boeing people at various nationwide sites to be aware of what was going at CCM,” says Holmes, “and then began looking for other ways to collaborate with the Center.”  With thermoplastics falling out of favor, one area of mutual interest was liquid molding processes, and some employees at the Boeing St. Louis site received training in CCM’s LIMS (Liquid Injection Molding Simulation) software. 

“We set up a VARTM lab in St. Louis,” Holmes says, “and began to work with that process at about the same time that CCM was beginning to do research on VARTM.  So it was natural that we would collaborate on modeling tools.”

In 2000, Holmes moved to Boeing’s Philadelphia site and shifted his technical focus from fixed-wing aircraft to helicopters.  “But I continued to use the skills I had acquired at CCM,” he says.  “When you’re working with multiple customers, you have to figure out how to bring teams together. My involvement on the Alcoa welding and RAPTECH programs helped me develop leadership qualities and prepared me for that challenge.”

“I had watched Dr. Gillespie deal with consortium members and government sponsors,” he continues, “and I saw that he brought the same excitement about finding composite solutions to all of his interactions.  He was always interested in hearing about the technical challenges they faced and in working with them to develop solutions—in other words, helping meet customer needs for the right composite solutions.”

Holmes’s next move came in 2005, when he realized that his work focused more and more on managing processes, paperwork, and people.  “I wanted to get back to engineering and working with composites again,” he says.
 
The opportunity to do so came with a small company that had started to work with Boeing.  Founded by another UD alum, Mike Louderback (BME1990), V System Composites had demonstrated the capability to produce high-quality laminates for aerospace applications using their unique VARTM process.   When Louderback offered Holmes an opportunity to set up the company’s new East Coast facility in Chester, PA, Holmes was ready.

“By that point, Boeing had outsourced a lot of its composites prototyping work,” he says. “I knew that there really weren’t any other small companies in the region supplying composites, and I saw a niche market in providing that product to many other companies on the East coast as well.  I wanted to get back into creative mode with composites, and V Systems provided that opportunity.”

CCM Hosts TexComp9 – International Collaboration in Composites

By Melissa Josef

As leaders in the field of composites, CCM is honored to host this year’s TexComp 9 conference, the goal of which is to promote knowledge in the field of textile composites worldwide.  The meeting will take place at Clayton Hall on October 13 – 15 on the University campus.  CCM’s Associate Director, Suresh Advani and CCM’s Director John W. Gillespie, Jr. will serve as the Co-chairs. CCM was approached by the conference leadership after last year’s conference and asked to host this year’s conference.  “We have successfully hosted small to midsize conferences before and with the new, excellent facilities the Delaware campus has available, we felt it was a great opportunity to enhance our international  reputation,” said Advani.

The focus of TexComp is the niche research in textiles that form the backbone of composites.  For over 10 years a group of scientists in this field have been getting together at this collaborative conference to explore textile architectures with composites that have better properties, performance, manufacturing methods and moving them towards making composites multifunctional through the integration of sensors and other devices into the fabrics to create smart structures.  The conference brings together a core group of people throughout the world involved in this research field.
 
The primary events at the conference will include industry booths, poster sessions, and research presentations.  All of CCM’s students will be encouraged to attend. “This will be an exciting event for CCM and completely in line with our mission of education, technology transfer, and research.”

The global nature of the conference is one of its most compelling attributes.  “The greatest thing about the conference for us is the international exchange,” said Advani, “In addition, we will be able to share our knowledge of composites and the potential of composites and have a creative exchange of ideas with so many others from around the world while building stronger global interactions and alliances.  It is also perfect for our students to build these relationships and it serves as a fertile ground for making a step change of taking composites to the next level.”

All papers from the conference will be published and bound in a book that will be distributed to participants and to libraries.

Register now at http://www.ccm.udel.edu/texcomp9/index.htm

Center Collaborates with Industrial Sponsor to Test Novel NDT Tool
By Melissa Josef

To test the effectiveness of the Exoscan, A2 Technologies turned to CCM for help.  “Specifically, we wanted to know whether the handheld FTIR could detect changes in the molecular structure of the composite induced by increasing exposure temperatures,” says Alan Rein, Vice President for Business Development at A2.  “We then wanted to correlate the spectral changes to the mechanical strength reduction of the composite.”

In tests carried out at CCM on autoclave specimens fabricated using Cytec 977–3 toughened epoxy, correlation of actual to predicted values was very high and consistently within the standard deviation of the actual mechanical test data. “The results show that the handheld FTIR can be used to accurately predict the reduction in strength of an epoxy carbon composite due to high-temperature exposure,” Heider says.

The company and the Center will continue to collaborate under a program funded by the Federal Aviation Administration over the next three years in an effort to better understand degradation mechanisms, correlations to FTIR measurements, and the effect of surface preparation on the measurement method. 

“Our goal is to develop a robust NDE technique to evaluate damage to composites and then to provide a tool to enable effective repair of the damage,” Rein says.  “Other applications of the handheld equipment, such as assessment of surface cleaning methods used prior to adhesive bonding and evaluation of prepreg material for recertification, are also being considered.”

Please see http://www.a2technologies.com/downloads/Exoscan/ThermalDamage204.pdf for information on full application.

For more information please contact:
UD-CCM:                     Dr. Dirk Heider, heider@udel.edu (302) 831-8898
A2 Technologies:         Dr. Alan Rein, arein@a2technologies.com (201) 909-8824

OTHER NEWS

How do you show a group of young teenagers that engineering is an interesting career path?  That was the challenge facing Dr. Dirk Heider and Dr. Charlie Garbini and a cast of research assistants this summer when a group of middle and high school students from the UD’s Engineering Cool Stuff Camps came to visit CCM.

With a name like “Cool Stuff” camp, the CCM crew was under some pressure to put on a show for the teenagers.  Research Assistant Justin Alms did just that.   Alms, who works with the LIMS software, focused on showing the kids how math and science can produce functional results.  He spent his time with the kids taking difficult ideas like finite analysis and trying to simplify them so that kids could understand them.  “Basically you’ve got all of these fancy equations and you can build software that does things for you,” Alms said.  He then let the kids play games with the software and try their hand at injecting resin at different points in the various molds.  “Kids really seem to pick the software up fast.  Maybe because they are so used to computers.  They learn it even faster than older engineers,” Alms said, ”It was a great experience working with them and exciting to see the message get through – to watch it click!” After working on LIMS, the kids put their virtual experience into practice.  They had an opportunity to make a composite comprised of glass fibers, vinyl ester, and foam core.  Hope Deffor divided the group up into teams so that there was a competition dependent upon failure rate testing of the samples taken for their completed composites.  Five samples from each composite were taken and then tested with a three-point bending test.  The failure rate for all of the groups was very close.  “When we told the kids it was a competition, they really put in a lot of effort,” Deffor said, “They had a great time learning about composites and engineering.  They loved it!” Assistant Dean and Director of the University’s Engineering Outreach program Kathy Werrell, which organizes the Cool Stuff Camp said, “Our camp had the very cool addition of a workshop where the kids worked in teams to make their own sandwich structures.  This was the only hands-on activity that involved a two-day experience, so while they were building their structures, the excitement was building too.  First making the structure, leaving it to cure, and then returning for the thrill of breaking it – what fun!  Any time we can get students involved in hands-on activities and in a competitive atmosphere, they rise to the occasion, learning – and retaining – so much.  I truly hope CCM staff will look forward to doing these pre-college outreach activities with us again in the future.” Click here to read full story in UDaily

Photo courtesy of UDaily

Amanda Lim is Awarded ASC Student Research Scholarship Grant By Melissa Josef This year CCM’s Amanda Lim is the recipient of one of the American Society for Composite’s (ASC) $1750 student research scholarship grants.  The organization awards two grants annually to formally enrolled Ph.D. candidates in engineering or science whose dissertation research is focused on an aspect of composite materials.   One thousand dollars of the grant is to support the student's research; the remaining $750 goes toward helping the student attend the annual ASC Technical Conference to accept the award at the conference banquet.

“I can’t express how grateful I am to the ASC for this recognition,” Lim said. “I have attended ASC conferences regularly since 2005 and am always struck by the high level of interest and energy there is at the conferences. The speakers and attendees are all genuinely interested in the different projects their peers are working on and, as a result, the presentations are all in general quite well attended.” Lim also expresses thanks for the support of CCM, which she views as an extraordinary place where collaboration is forefront and researchers are afforded wonderful opportunities. “We really have a good deal here. We benefit from the knowledge of our advisors and we also gain the expertise of other researchers here,” Lim said. “We are given opportunities to interact and learn from researchers in government labs and in industry and finally, we are also provided with the funding to conduct our research and to share it with the scientific community.”

Lim’s research at CCM involves implementing the split-Hopkinson pressure bar technique for the evaluation of particle suspensions with viscoelastic characteristics.  Her research has won several awards over the past few years including the first place poster award from ASC in 2006, the Center for Composite Materials Progress Award, the Center for Composite Materials Director’s Award, and first place awards in the student paper symposiums held by SAMPE and SEM this year.

The ASC is an all-volunteer group of dedicated professionals in academia, industry, national laboratories and federal agencies with a mission to provide a communication forum for the scientific community in composite materials.  For further information you may refer to http://www.asc-composites.org/Student-Scholars.html

CONSORTIUM NEWS

Hypro® Reactive Liquid Polymers as Epoxy/Vinyl Ester Tougheners

By Melissa Josef

The Specialty Polymers division of Emerald Performance Materials manufactures Hypro® reactive liquid polymers excelling as tougheners for thermoset resins such as epoxies and vinyl esters. Carboxyl terminated butadiene-acrylonitrile copolymers known as CTBN can be utilized in many applications but specifically in the aerospace and automotive industries where they are used in the form of structural epoxy adhesives, foams and coatings. Enhanced peel resistance is one of the benefits of these materials achieved due to the energy dissipating mechanisms associated with the toughening technology of phase separated rubber in a continuous phase of cross linked thermoset resin.

These same reactive liquid polymers are used in composites as well with matrices based on either an epoxy or vinyl ester resin. Preliminary studies have been conducted to characterize fiberglass reinforced, elastomer toughened epoxy and vinyl ester composites. A fracture mechanics expression known as critical strain energy release rate denoted by Gc has been used to define toughness. Delamination resistance has been determined using ASTM D 5528-Mode I Interlaminar Fracture Toughness of Unidirectional Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Matrix Composites.

Unmodified E-glass reinforced vinyl ester and epoxy composites have GIc initiation values in the range of 175-400 J/m2 whereas comparable elastomer toughened epoxy and vinyl ester composites have GIc initiation values in the range of 750-2000 J/m2. GIc propagation values for unmodified vinyl ester- and epoxy-glass composites are in the range of 650 to 1200 J/m2 with elastomer toughened versions having GIc values of 1600-2100 J/m2.

Importantly, due to the glass transition temperature of the reactive liquid polymers Mode I interlaminar fracture toughness work has begun at low temperatures.  Preliminary results in vinyl ester composites suggests that at -40˚C the elastomer toughened resins maintain 85-95% of their room temperature interlaminar fracture toughness.

With Emerald Performance Materials joining CCM the intent is that we’ll continue to be an active raw materials supplier to the composites industry.

Editor’s Note: Emerald Performance Materials is a continuing member of the UD-CCM Industrial Consortium (membership renewal announced in July 2008), and a raw materials supplier to the composites industry.

CONSORTIUM MEMBERS

CCM would like to thank Hyosung Corporation, S. Korea, for becoming our newest consortium members. We also wish to thank 3TEX, Inc., Cary NC, Ashland Performance Materials, Dublin, OH, and VSystem Composites, San Diego, CA, for the recent renewal of their consortium memberships.

To learn more about the benefits of becoming a member, please visit us on the web at

www.ccm.udel.edu/Consortium/benefits.html

PUBLICATIONS

Conference Proceedings

Kalman, D. P., B. A. Rosen, and N. J. Wagner, “Effects of Particle Hardness on Shear Thickening Colloidal Suspension Rheology,” The XVth International Congress on Rheology, pp. 1408-1410, 2008.

Journals

Heider, D., H. Deffor, M. Reuter, J. W. Gillespie, Jr., M. Mohamed, A. Bogdanovich, and R. Crane, “Large-Scale Joint Fabrication using 3-D Fabric Preforms, Sandwich Core Structure and VARTM Processing,” SAMPE Journal, 44 (5) pp. 29-34, 2008.

Kissounko, D. A., J. M. Deitzel, S. P. Doherty, A. Shah, and J. W. Gillespie, Jr., “Investigating the role of clay Silicate Nanoparticles in Thermal Curing of Cyanate Ester Resin,” European Polymer Journal, 44, pp. 2807-2819, 2008.

Patents

Gerhard, J. K., E. J. Lynam, M. R. Shaffer, S. Yarlagadda, N. B. Shevchenko, B. K. Fink, D. Heider, J. J. Tierney, J. W. Gillespie, Jr., "Apparatus and Method for Induction Lamination of Electrically Conductive Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials," U. S. Patent No.7,419,373, issued September 2, 2008.

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