JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #132 - January/February 2020 - 60

TECHNOLOGY inside the lab

University of Nottingham's
Composites Research Group
The University of Nottingham (UoN) Composites Research Group have led research projects on the design
and manufacture of polymer composites since the 1980s, including pioneering work on out-of-autoclave
processing, automated reinforcement deposition, process modelling and recycling.

he Group was founded
through research funding
from Ford in the 1980's, and
the automotive sector has continued to be a particular focus leading to more recent expansion into
the aerospace and rail industries.
Industrial engagement is a strong
theme and the Group has collaborated in a number of research
programmes with leading OEMs
from all sectors. The Group hosts
the EPSRC Future Composites
Manufacturing Research Hub - a
£10 million investment from 20172023.

Currently the Group
consists of:
- 11 academic staff,
- 23 PhD students and
- 13 postgraduate researchers,
- with a research funding
portfolio of £14M.

The Composites Research Group team

Research themes
Research in the Composites Research
Group focuses on four principal themes:
Automated Manufacturing, Process
Simulation & Optimisation, Textile
Modelling and Composites Recycling.
Automated Manufacturing (hybrid architecture compression moulding, directed
carbon fibre preforming (DCFP), thermoplastic overmoulding, braiding, diaphragm forming, automated dry fibre
placement (ADFP), automated tape laying (ATL), continuous fibre 3D printing). Driven by industry's need to increase production volumes, this research
aims to maintain and improve process
robustness and repeatability at high production rates.
Process Simulation & Optimisation (fabric
formability characterisation and process
optimisation, resin infusion simulation
and optimisation, braiding simulation).
Underpinning the Group's automated
manufacturing portfolio to produce more

jec composites magazine / N°132 January - February 2020

complex, robust composites components.
Textile Modelling (TexGen software, automated mesh generation, 3D weave optimisation, unit cell mechanical analysis,
component-level FEA, CTE prediction,
unit cell CFD permeability determination). Given the many possible combinations of reinforcement textiles and matrix
materials, these simulations predict properties for both material behaviour during
manufacturing and the final performance
of the material.
Composites Recycling (Fibre recycling
using fluidised bed and solvolysis, life
cycle analysis and techno-economics of
composites manufacturing, recycled fibre conversion and reuse). Composites
recycling research was pioneered at
Nottingham by Prof. Steve Pickering in
the late 1990s and current sustainability
drivers make this one of the most critical areas of research undertaken by the
Group.

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #132 - January/February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #132 - January/February 2020