Listing of Active Research Projects

Damage Tolerant Design of Composite Structures
Composite materials are making a surge into the aerospace industry. Current practice utilizes a safe-life approach to design with composites; however, damage tolerant design offers opportunity for added safety and weight savings when designing with composites. Read more...

Fatigue Crack Growth in Advanced Hybrid Structures
Advanced Hybrid Structures is an extension of the FML concept to make them suitable for thicker structures such as wing skins. Making this class of materials suitable for thicker structures opens new doors for FML application, but also creates new questions. Read more...

Variable Amplitude Fatigue in Fibre Metal Laminates
Fatigue processes are typically studied within the constant amplitude regime of loading; however, in practice, most structures are exposed to varying loads. Efforts are underway to extend our understanding of constant amplitude to variable amplitude fatigue in FMLs. Read more...

Fretting Fatigue in Mechanically Fastened Joints
Frictional load transfer is known to have a significant effect on fatigue in mechanically fastened joints. Despite this, the effects of friction are often neglected from analysis due to a lack of understanding of frictional load transfer in bolted joints and fretting fatigue. Read more...

Residual Strength of FMLs
The residual strength of damaged structures is an important measure for the safety and airworthiness of critical aircraft structures. Building upon the superior fatigue resistance of FML structures, research efforts are underway to predict and improve the residual strength of FMLs. Read more...

Fibre Bragg Grating Sensors
The use of imbedded sensors for structural health monitoring of aerospace structures could provide a means to reduce maintenance and inspection costs. Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors are a promising family of sensors for this application. Read more...

Shearography
Non-contact strain measurement techniques provide new possibilities for testing and research, manufacture quality control, and maintenance and inspection operations for aerospace structures. Shearography is one such method with a promising future. Read more...

Tailor Made Blanks for Aerospace Application
The concept of Tailor made blanks (TMB) is based on the idea of joining two or more metal sheets that differ in thickness or/and material composition or condition, before the forming operations. Such a process can reduce manufacturing time and cost of manufacturing complex aerospace structures. Read more...

Joggling in Glare Structures
For structural weight optimization in aircraft structures, non-uniform skin thicknesses are used. The non-uniformity of such skins creates problems for attaching stiffening elements which must follow the contour of the skin surface. One method for producing a non-uniform stiffening element to match the non-uniform skin is joggling. Read more...

Manufacturing of Next Generation FMLs
Manufacturing flat laminates is simple, but modern aerospace products are built up of curved and double-curved components. Thus, to make FMLs a more competitive option in the aerospace industry, new manufacturing techniques that aid in producing such curved parts are necessary. Read more...

Rubber Backed Bending
Rubber backed bending is one of the bending processes that may be used to fabricate straight profiles or other products having flanges. This process has several advantages for the aerospace industry, including the ability to form parts containing protective coatings or functional layers. Read more...

Fire Resistant Nanocomposites for Space Applications
Fire behaves differently in space as compared to normal gravity on earth.  There is also a perception that in spacecraft, because of the absence of gravity, materials are less flammable than on earth where buoyancy helps the fire. However, recent research is indicating that in fact materials can be easier to ignite and may burn under less stringent conditions in spacecraft environments. Read more...