Material and Structural Assessment of Thermal Spray Composites

Experimental and computational assessment of random, discontinuous, long fiber reinforced composites manufactured with the thermal spray-structural reaction injection molding (TS-SRIM) process is undertaken to determine their material and mechanical characteristics as design allowables. The glass content, the reinforcement architecture, and the geometry of the specimens are treated as the primary variables. The glass fiber reinforcement was either discontinuous long fiber (TS) or in combination with unidirectional continuous fiber (TS-UNI). In addition to classical flat coupons, hat beams are tested to assess structural response. The finite element models of the hat beams use the material data generated from the coupon tests. The coupon test data revealed that tensile, flexural, and compressive properties increased as a function of weight percent glass content for the coupons and beams with the isotropic reinforcement. For the orthotropic architectures with increasing glass content, perfonnance improved in the longitudinal direction and declined in the transverse direction. However, the loading capacity of the hat beams with a constant total glass content remained indifferent to the variation of UNI glass additions. The computational simulation results compared favorably to beam test results. Analytical studies of beams with stiffeners (ribs) subjected to bending loads showed that longitudinal ribs oriented along the beam axis offered little improvement in structural response, whereas transversely oriented ribs significantly increased the load capacity.