Composite materials are becoming more popular in technological applications due to the significant weight savings and strength offered by these materials compared to metallic materials. In many of these practical situations, the structures suffer from drop-impact loads. Materials and structures significantly change their behavior when submitted to impact loading conditions compared to quasi-static loading. The present work is devoted to investigating the thermal process in carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) subjected to a drop test. A novel drop-weight impact test experiment is performed to evaluate parameters specific to 3D composite materials. A strain gauge rosette and infrared thermography are employed to record the kinematic and thermal fields on the composites’ surfaces. This technique is nondestructive and offers an extensive full-field investigation of a material’s response. The combination of strain and infrared thermography data allows a comprehensive analysis of thermoelastic effects in CFRP when subjected to impacts. The experimental results are validated using numerical analysis by developing a MATLAB® code to analyze whether the coupled heat and wave equation phenomenon exists in a two-dimensional polar coordinate system by discretizing through a forward-time central-space (FTCS) finite-difference method (FDM). The results show the coupling has no significant impact as the waves generated due to impact disappears in 0.015 s. In contrast, heat diffusion happens for over a one-second period. This study demonstrates that the heat equation alone governs the CFRP heat flow process, and the thermoelastic effect is negligible for the specific drop-weight impact load.
The harsh climate of the Arctic has always posed significant challenges to car drivers. The severe loss in traction due to snow and icing on the roads has led to an increased risk of collisions. The chapter compares the conventional air-filled tire with a non-pneumatic tire to improve the grip in the Arctic conditions. The grip obtained for tires is determined by the weight of the car and the friction between the tire and the road. The friction coefficient, used to determine friction, is a function of the contact pressure. This chapter discuss research work to obtain a concentrated pressure profile for the airless tire, compared to a conventional tire. A finite element analysis using ANSYS® Workbench is performed on two distinct models. The different pressure profiles of the models are analyzed, and the results proved the non-pneumatic tires have a more concentrated pressure profile with higher pressure values.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.