SBIR-STTR Award

Tailorable composites have been proposed to further lightweighting space structures with improved performance. However, no existing design tools are capable of exploiting the full potential of these advanced material systems. The theory underpinning existing design tools was originally developed for traditional composites with straight fibers while tailorable composites usually have curved fibers with varying orientations or more complex microstructures. To harness their full potential, it is imperative to develop theories and design methodologies for tailorable composites and integrate them into commercially available design tools. We propose to develop an efficient high-fidelity design tool for tailorable composites featuring the following three innovations: Mechanics of structure genome (MSG) based composite models for calculating the location-dependent stiffness and strength of tailorable composites, which can rigorously predict effective stiffness and strength as well as layerwise stress/strain/displacement distributions. A versatile parameterization method that can expand the design space to achieve better design for tailorable composites along with general-purpose optimizers to produce highly tailorable designs with optimized load path. An integrated design framework with user-friendly GUI plug-ins in MSC.Patran/Nastran and Abaqus for the design of tailorable composite structures to leverage the versatile modeling capability in MSC.Nastran and Abaqus. This project will benefit NASA and related agencies/industries by exploiting the potential of tailorable composites for designing better lightweight structures. The resulting efficient high-fidelity design tool developed in this project will shorten the design and analysis period of structures made of tailorable composites. Such a tool will ultimately reduce the cost associated with using tailorable composites and accelerate affordable space exploration by NASA and the private sector. Anticipated

Benefits:
Lightweight structures for satellite buses, landers, rovers and other exploration vehicles, solar arrays, and antennas. Cryogenic tanks, pressurized habitats, other primary space structure components, including dry & unpressurized, such as lander truss cages, landing gears. Next-generation airframe tech (hybrid/blended wing body); highly flexible wings. Highly fatigue and damage tolerant structures for revolutionary vertical lift aircraft. Better engineering and qualification of broader composite lightweight structures (with improved predictive capabilities). Validated design and analysis tools for the industrial realization of tailorable composites (aerospace, energy/wind, auto, marine, etc.). Improved designs for high-performance tailorable structures (prosthetics, fishing rods, golf clubs, tubes, etc.) with reduced cost & time.

To harness the potential of advanced tailorable composites for lightweighting aerospace structures with enhanced performance, AnalySwift proposes to develop an efficient high-fidelity Design tool for Advanced Tailorable Composites (DATC). Building upon our accomplishments in Phase I, DATC will be developed based on the efficient high-fidelity constitutive modeling capability of mechanics of structure genome (MSG) and its companion code SwiftComp, the versatile structural analysis capabilities of two finite element analysis (FEA) packages Abaqus and MSC.Patran/Nastran, the general-purpose optimizer Dakota, and the state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) package TensorFlow. DATC will integrate all these tools into a unified and intuitive design framework, facilitating design setups and enabling innovative designs of structures made of tow-steered composites. MSG computes the location-dependent shell properties for FEA and Dakota performs optimization for varying fiber orientations, ply coverages (varying ply thickness and ply drops), and different materials with manufacturing constraints. ML provides ultra-efficient surrogate models to accelerate the optimization from days to hours. The associated computer codes are developed with an open architecture to allow users to add new functionalities for specific problems. Several realistic aerospace structures will be employed to verify the validate the developed tool and demonstrate the benefits from tailorable composites in reducing the structural weights and/or improving the load-bearing capacity. We expect to release DATC by the end of the Phase II as a user-friendly graphic user interface (GUI) plug-in for MSC.Patran/Nastran and Abaqus so that engineers familiar with these two FEA codes can easily use DATC to carry out analysis, parametric studies, and design optimizations of highly tailorable composite structures. Anticipated

Benefits:
Lightweight structures for satellite buses, landers, rovers and other exploration vehicles, solar arrays, and antennas. Cryogenic tanks, pressurized habitats, other primary space structure components, including dry & unpressurized, such as lander truss cages, landing gears. Next-generation airframe tech (hybrid/blended wing body); highly flexible wings. Highly fatigue and damage tolerant structures for revolutionary vertical lift aircraft. High performance, lightweight commercial space/aerospace structures and components (with improved predictive capabilities). Validated design and analysis tools for the realization of tailorable composites in secondary markets (energy/wind, auto, marine, etc.). Improved designs for high-performance tailorable structures (prosthetics, fishing rods, golf clubs, tubes, etc.) with reduced cost & time.