SAMPE Journal - January/February 2016 - 2

GLOBAL PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Takashi Ishikawa, PhD

Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering
Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University
ishikawa@nuae.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Again in this issue, I would like to introduce my early days' research activities related to advanced
composites conducted from the late 1970's to mid1980's. When I joined to National Aerospace
Laboratory of Japan (NAL, which is similar to NASA) in 1978, my assignment was to support the
development of a complete CFRP horizontal tail of the NAL research STOL aircraft named "ASUKA."
This project was the first attempt to design and build carbon fiber/epoxy aerostructures conducted
within Japan. It was one of the earliest ambitious plans in the world at that time. One structural
feature was the sinusoidal corrugated web vertical wall for the main spars like the AV-8B aircraft
made in the USA. For achieving sufficient drapability to the spar mold, 8 Harness Satin prepreg of
carbon fiber/epoxy was employed as the web material throughout in this project. One day in late
1979, an engineer from MHI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Co. Ltd, the main contractor of this project)
came to me and asked the reason why consolidated 1-ply 8 Harness Satin plate deformed so seriously,
almost changing into a cylinder. They fabricated single ply 8 Harness Satin plate material to evaluate
mechanical properties. At that time, the knowledge about composites made of textile reinforcements
was very limited, particularly for satin-weave type fabrics. I then created models of 8 Harness, 5
Harness and 4 Harness Satin fabrics with blue and white wool threads which my wife brought from
her home. Actually, we were newly married! Using the satin fabric models, I very easily found the
true reason of deformation, loss of the symmetry with respect to the mid-surface of single-ply satin
woven plates. As the next step, I conducted a full literature survey of various composites journals
and learned that I could open up an entire new field on the mechanics of fabric composites. Then, I
wrote my first paper about this topic entitled "Anti-Symmetric Elastic Properties of Composite Plates
of Satin Weave Cloth" for submission to "Fibre Science and Technology". The paper was accepted and
published. At the same time, I was offered a chance to do research at University of Delaware, USA,
with Professor Tsu-Wei Chou. When I visited his office in October 1980, he allowed me to continue the
textile composite mechanics work I had previously started. Since then, we published several papers
of the early portions of textile composites mechanics with high citation indices.
When I went back to Japan after two years stay at the University of Delaware, the project reached
to its final stage of the strength test of the 1/2 scale model of a full CFRP horizontal tail. I joined the
test team and discovered another important phenomena concerning the compression strength of
composite structures. A description of its detail is skipped here. However, my lessons-learned that
new topics can be frequently discovered in the linkage between academia and practical challenges
could be broadened to many people within composites research fields. Although the fully developed
CFRP model would not be realized as the real flying empennage, the technology accumulated in NAL
and MHI was handed over to Japan's original fighter aircraft's(so-called F2) main wings. Finally, it
consisted of the technology basis of for the Boeing 787 main wing production.

SAMPE Journal, Volume 52, No. 1, January/February 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAMPE Journal - January/February 2016