• Dr. Stephen Clay
  • Wright Patterson Air Force Base
  • 1050 Torgersen Hall
  • 2:00 p.m.
  • Faculty Host: Dr. Rakesh Kapania

Composite structures offer many advantages over conventional metallic structures, including higher specific strength and stiffness.  These benefits should translate into lighter weight structures, but this is not always the case.  For laminated polymer matrix composites, the matrix dominated out-of-plane properties and bearing strength are very low.  To compensate, extra material and heavy mechanical fasteners are often applied to structural joints.  Dr. Clay will discuss several of the emerging joining technologies being developed by the Air Force Research Lab and their industrial and university partners in order to overcome these shortcomings.  Some of the techniques to be discussed include z-pinning, stitching, flocking, co-melding, and 3-D woven Pi preforms.   An overview of the Air Force Research Lab will also be presented.