Current projects

Prof Thiru Aravinthan

Monitoring structural health through its service life is a threshold yet to set foot in Australia, and Fibre Optics provides the cutting edge technology to achieve this target. The aim of this project was to establish a new technology on measurement system in structural health monitoring. In order to measure the internal strains, a few FBG sensors were successfully embedded in a hybrid composite beam section during its construction. The performances of FBG sensors were excellent and have not been damaged during a 100,000 cyclic loading regime. The ability of the FBG sensors to withstand harsh operating environment and their long life span make them appropriate for structural health monitoring of hybrid composite-beams used for major civil infrastructure constructions.
Project funding:
CEEFC internal project

While thermoset resins exhibit excellent chemical and thermal resistance, one major drawback is their relatively brittle nature in neat resin or glass reinforced laminates.  In 2004, several techniques to improve the neat resin toughness of phenolic and epoxy resins were investigated, including the use of vegetable oil-based derivatives such as glycerol and cardanol.  This fundamental work is expected to lead to the development of thermoset resins and  laminates prepared with modified thermoset resins with improved mechanical performance, which will in turn lead to new commercial opportunities for epoxy and phenolic based products at the CEEFC.
Project funding:
CEEFC internal project

Assoc Prof Karu Karunasena
Assoc Prof Hao Wang 
Dr Allan Manalo

Assoc Prof Hao Wang 
Assoc Prof Yan Zhuge
Assoc Prof Karu Karunasena

Geopolymers are a class of inorganic polymers formed by the reaction between an alkaline solution and an aluminosilicate source or feedstock (Fig. 3). The hardened material has an amorphous, three-dimensional structure that behaves like cement, which makes it an ideal substitute for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in a wide range of applications. Geopolymers are formed at room temperature; therefore calcinations process is not needed. The wide-scale acceptance of geopolymer cement and the concrete they form represents a significant opportunity to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, many by-products or waste materials produced by the industry can be used as feedstock for geopolymer, including fly ash, blast furnace slag and red mud from alumina refinery. This project is being done in collaboration with the industries with the aim of developing geopolymers to replace OPC in concrete structures, and evaluate their performance in real applications.
Project partners:
Haald Engineering 
Hatch Australia 

Assoc Prof Hao Wang 
Dr Francisco Cardona

Composite materials suppliers, manufacturers and end-users have significant unmet demands in environmentally friendly technologies, particularly materials from renewable sources. This CRC-ACS project aims to develop a plant-based fibre composites to replace wood, glass fibre composites and other non-structural and semi-structural materials. The five-year project aims to achieve the following objectives:
1. To develop materials that are partially and fully sourced from renewable resources;
2. To improve performance, design methodologies and manufacturing processes of plant fibre biocomposites;
3. To provide product solutions for replacement of fibreglass and wood, and improve value and performance of extruded plastics products; and
4. To keep abreast on the latest technology developments in plant fibre biocomposites.
Several distinct challenges exist for the adoption of plant fibres as reinforcement, common to composites based on thermosetting, thermoplastic and bio-sourced polymers. The most significant of these are moisture resistance, enhancement of the interface between fibre and resin, and improving the strength performance of defect-laden fibres. The main activities include:
1. Review of Literature and Commercial Developments;
2. Surface Treatment – Fibre Adhesion and Moisture;
3. Composite Manufacturing Process Development - Enhanced Extruded and Infused Biocomposites;
4. Biocomposite Failure Characterisation; and
5. Nanocellulose Composite Development.
Project funding:
CEEFC internal project

Dr Jayantha Epaarachchi
Assoc Prof Hao Wang 

In 2009, USQ and Boeing Research and Technology Australia (BRTA) have signed an agreement for collaborative research on structural health monitoring of aerospace structures. The project was funded by both USQ and BRTA with a total project cost of $10,5000 (cash) for 3 years. A PhD candidate, Mr Gayan Kahandawa was appointed in October 2009 with two CEEFC members Dr. Jayantha Epaarachchi (Principal Supervisor) and Dr. Hao Wang (Associate Supervisor) supervising the project. After a year of project commencement, about 40% of the total project work has been completed to date. Already completed works include the identification of damaged critical aerospace components, sample preparation and testing with embedded Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors and the application of neural network concepts for damage identification. The critical structural component from a helicopter rotor blade was selected as the part which will be monitored in this study. The base of the blade was identified as the critical stress concentrated point with delamination as the most probable damage type. According to the manufacturers specifications, the critical size of the damage is identified as 5 X 5 mm. Therefore, the stress field variation close to the delaminations should be thoroughly investigated. A novel data acquisition method for embedded FBG sensors was also developed. The new data acquisition system simultaneously record the FBG sensor readings for post processing and input FBG data into artificial neural network (ANN) for advanced processing. A few Finite Element (FE) models were developed on ABAQUS FEA software to generate calculated stress/strain field data for ANN.
Project partner:
Boeing Research and Technology Australia

Dr Harry Ku
Dr Francisco Cardona
Mr Mohan Trada 

This research project is to enhance the ability of nanoparticles, nanoclay in this study, by post-curing the samples obtained by microwave irradiation. The yield strength, tensile strength, Young’s modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, flexural strain, permittivity, electrical loss tangent , storage modulus, glass transition temperatures and mechanical loss tangent of phenol formaldehyde composites reinforced with varying percentages by weight of nanoclay were measured and evaluated. The results show that composites post-cured in microwaves have much better mechanical, thermal and electrical properties than their counterparts cured under ambient conditions, and post-cured in an oven. The process will obviously enable composite industries to produce composite materials with better mechanical, electrical and thermal properties in a much shorter time and less energy.
Project partner:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Smart structure for application in wind turbine blade

Dr Mainul Islam

Syntactic foams are in general ternary materials made of pre-formed hollow microspheres, binder and voids. Syntactic foams can be used as various structural components including sandwich composites and in areas where low densities are required e.g. undersea/marine equipment for deep ocean current-metering, anti-submarine warfare and others. Their other uses include products in aerospace, automotive and building industries. However, the densities of syntactic foams in the past have been relatively high compared to the traditional expandable foams, limiting their applications. A wide variety of materials can be used for syntactic foams. The filler microspheres may be glass, polymeric, carbon, ceramic or metallic materials. Thus, a wide range of different types of syntactic foams can be made by selecting different materials and consolidating techniques for binder and hollow microspheres. Various types of sandwich composites can also be made by selecting different constituent materials for core and skins. For the selection of constituent materials, factors such as properties and cost may be considered.
Project funding:
CEEFC internal project

Prof Thiru Aravinthan 
Dr Mainul Islam 
Dr Allan Manalo

Assoc Prof Karu Karunasena
Dr Sourish Banerjee
Dr Allan Manalo

Assoc Prof Hao Wang 
Dr Francisco Cardona