thesis defense of Fabien COUSSA

of center of materials, MINES-ParistTech

Fabien COUSSA had defense his thesis

Modelling of the crash behaviour and rupture of continues fibers reinforced thermoplastic composites

on june, the 26th

Car manufacturers are looking for solutions to lighten their vehicles in order to meet pollutant emission requirements – for thermal engines – or to extend their range – for electric vehicles. Composite materials, among other solutions, offer excellent strength and durability. However increased per unit cost and manufacturing time are among the main drawbacks material producers have to overcome in order to make composite solutions viable for mass-market production. In that prospect, woven glass fibers and thermoplastic matrices respectively are more serious contenders than aeronautic-grade composites. The objective application is a door reinforcement module, whose main function is to act as a safety net, adding its own stiffness and strength to that of the steel door and preventing any foreign object from entering the passenger compartment. A main preoccupation is therefore the constitutive behavior of that material under strain rates varying from 10-3 s-1 to approximately 50 s-1. The study objective is to develop a physically-based constitutive law modelling in order to take into account strain-rate sensitivity on behavior. A new and consistent experimental procedure aiming at capturing the influence of speed solicitation on non-linear internal mechanisms is developed and allows identifying non-linear constitutive law parameters over a wide range of strain rates until failure. Resulting mainly from direct evaluations and direct identification procedure, the accuracy of the implemented constitutive law is guaranteed through numerical computations involving effects of material and structural heterogeneities.