The present dissertation thesis is
one of
the first worldwide efforts
to study the behavior of
3d printed fiber reinforced honeycomb structures. The 3d printer that has been used for the
experiments is ‘’Markforged Mark Two’’. Markforged printers are unique in their ability to
lay continuous strands of fibers
(carbon,
glass
and kevlar) inside 3D printed parts to achieve
strengths
comparable to metals.
The novelty in
this
research is the fact that the fiber
reinforcement will be inserted in the total body of the honeycomb structure, despite the
existent
papers
that try to add reinforcement
s in specific parts of specimens.
Another important effort that has been made in this dissertation thesis, is to simulate 3d
printed materials in Finite Element Analysis software. The ANSYS Workbench has been
selected for this purpose.
3d printed technology is really new and CAE software programs
a
re not really appropriate to study these materials yet. However, ANSYS tries to overcome
these problems with the
announcement of 3DSIM which is a software that will be able to
simulate 3d printed structures.
ANSYS hopes that by combining its flagship softw
are with
exaSIM
(
additive manufacturing simulation workflow),
and FLEX
(
helps
to
develop 3D
printing operations and best practices based on one’s materials and equipment
selections)
, it will be able to help users reduce the risks, trial
and error of implementing a
3D printing workflow. It also hopes to speed up the installation and optimization of 3D
printing equipment
1
2
In addition the proper and more accurate simulation of 3d
printed structures will be possible.
Finally,
another new approach that h
as been studied in this thesis, is to make
high resistant
honeycomb structures that will be able to be
sandwiched between
other more flexible
materials. This new approach may have great impact in several aerospace applications,
where lightweight and less s
tiff honeycomb structures are being sandwiched by carbon
fiber panels in order to acquire the proper mechanical properties until now. The new
proposal, that will be presented in this research, will make possible the elimination of the
use of fibers
(carbon
, glass or Kevlar)
,
by adding them in special selected parts of the
honeycomb structure
and remove them from the bottom and top panels.
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