
Prasad PotluriThe University of Manchester · School of Materials
Prasad Potluri
BE, MTech, PhD
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178
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Introduction
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Publications
Publications (178)
This paper investigates the damage resistance and tolerance of thermoset composite laminates
stitched by glass and hybrid glass/polypropylene commingled yarns. Different impact energies
(10–70 J) were applied to stitched composite laminates before compression after impact (CAI)
tests were conducted. The results showed that, except for 70J, commingl...
This study investigates the effect of interface hybrid toughening on the fatigue performance of composite laminates by examining a single-step joint configuration with a bondline incorporating core-shell rubber (CSR) nanoparticles and thermoplastic micro-fiber polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) veils. Three types of bondlines for the single-step joint con...
This paper investigates how combining natural and synthetic fibers within yarns, altering the degree of hybridisation, and varying weave architectures affect the homogenized elastic properties and stress distributions in 2D woven composite laminae using a two‐scale homogenization scheme. The novelty lies in integrating a micro‐scale representative...
This research investigates the static and high-cycle-fatigue behaviour and failure mechanisms of co-cured composite single-step joints with two-scale interface toughening. Resin infusion followed by out-of-autoclave curing is used to manufacture the co-cured carbon/epoxy composite single-step joints without a structural adhesive. The co-cured compo...
Flax reinforced composites are becoming popular in automotive and civil industries due to their green production and recycling, and for good specific strength. To manufacture composites, firstly a multi-layer of flax preforms undergo compressive pressure before resin impregnation that causes nesting, wherein, fibres of one layer fit into the adjace...
Traditional thermosetting composites have high specific strength and stiffness but exhibit poor damage tolerance. To address this, fibre hybridisation emerges as a cost-effective strategy. This study investigates the transverse shear failure of fibre-hybrid unidirectional composite laminae, specifically primary E-glass fibres with secondary fibres...
This paper investigates the effect of intra-laminar fibre hybridisation, i.e., primary and secondary fibres within a matrix, on the homogenised properties and micro-stress fields in uni-directional polymer composite laminae. The study is focused on S-glass/epoxy laminae which are hybridised with secondary fibres (e.g., polypropylene). Two-dimension...
This study investigates the effect of fiber‐hybrid non‐woven veils on the interlaminar fracture of out‐of‐autoclave carbon/epoxy laminates. The Mode‐I and Mode‐II interlaminar toughening performance and R‐curves behavior of out‐of‐autoclave composite laminates with carbon and thermoplastic fiber‐hybrid veils are investigated. Pure carbon veil (i.e....
This study examines empirically and theoretically the open-hole tension and compression characteristics of thermoset composites using hybrid glass/polypropylene and glass/innegra yarns. The Abaqus software, finite element analysis (FEA) has been adopted to predict the tensile and compressive failure loads and damage failure modes for un- and notche...
Voids in composite laminates can influence damage initiation, propagation and lead to catastrophic failure. It is therefore important to characterize the morphology and content of voids reliably in order to decide deployment or disposal of a composite component. In this work, thin carbon/epoxy non-crimp-fabric laminates with varying void contents/p...
In this paper, the effect of intra-yarn hybridisation on the macroscopic homogenised properties of natural fibre-based hybrid composites (NFHCs) was computationally investigated. Many researchers have experimentally investigated hybrid effects on their mechanical properties. Only a limited number of computational studies on NFHCs have been reported...
Glass fibre reinforced composite laminates have shown poor interlaminar fracture toughness which makes them vulnerable to impact damages; hence, it is essential to improve their fracture toughness and understand the mechanisms of impact energy dissipation. In this study, polypropylene (PP) fibres are mixed with glass fibres at yarn-level hybridisat...
Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites generally have a layered architecture and are commonly manufactured with thermosetting resins—making them susceptible to interlaminar fracture (i.e. delamination), which is often a major concern in structurally critical applications. As a result, various approaches have been explored to enhance interlaminar...
Flax fibre reinforced composites are becoming popular in the automotive and civil industries due to their environmentally friendly nature in terms of production and recycling and for their good specific strength. Textile structures undergo transverse compaction during composite manufacturing which changes the fabric thickness and ultimately fibre v...
Textile preforms have a multi-scale hierarchy of fibres, tows and plies; geometry at each scale influences the manufacturing processes, the permeability of the textile to resin as well as the mechanical properties of the finished laminate. High-fidelity structural models for textile composites require accurate non-idealised tow geometry as well as...
Advanced composite materials are widely used in civil and military applications due to their superior specific strength and stiffness. However, they are susceptible to damage during impact loading. In order to improve the impact performance, yarn hybridisation and fibre architecture have been investigated in this study in order to evaluate their in...
The torsional performance of bi-axially braided carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) tubes as a function of braid architecture is investigated. It is found that for a given braid pattern, the 45° braided CFRP tubes have higher shear moduli and lower shear strength than the 35° braids. In general, 2/2 (regular) braided CFRP tubes exhibit both high...
In the present work, polymer-based syntactic foams were studied under cyclic compression in order to investigate their compressibility, recoverability, energy dissipation and damage tolerance. These syntactic foams were manufactured by adding hollow polymer microspheres of various sizes and wall thicknesses into a polyurethane matrix. The associate...
An experimental study is conducted with the aim of balancing in-plane mechanical properties and impact damage tolerance in composite woven laminates using a quasi-unidirectional (quasi-UD) woven fabric (i.e. low crimp architecture) and yarn-level fibre hybridisation. In this work, composite laminates are manufactured with and without yarn-level hyb...
Natural fibers composites are considered as sustainable alternative to synthetic composites due to their environmental and economic benefits. However, they suffer from poor mechanical and interfacial properties due to a random fiber orientation and weak fiber-matrix interface. Here we report nano-engineered graphene-based natural jute fiber preform...
Natural fibers composites are considered as sustainable alternative to synthetic composites due to their environmental and economic benefits. However, they suffer from poor mechanical and interfacial properties due to a random fiber orientation and weak fiber-matrix interface. Here we report nano-engineered graphene-based natural jute fiber preform...
Syntactic foams are composite materials frequently used in applications requiring the properties of low density and high damage tolerance. In the present work, polymer-based syntactic foams were studied under cyclic compression in order to investigate their compressibility, recoverability, energy dissipation and damage tolerance. These syntactic fo...
Tailored fibre placement (TFP) is an embroidery-based technology that allows the fibre tows to be placed exactly where they are most needed for structural performance and stitched into position on a compatible textile or polymer substrate. In this study commingled carbon-nylon fibre tows were utilised to produce thermoplastic cross-ply net-shaped p...
Structural health monitoring is a fast growing area used to assess the state of various structures such as aircraft, building, bridge, wind turbine, pipe, automobile through appropriate data processing and interpretation. This article presents a novel technique of optimising the conventional optical fibres used for structural health monitoring, in...
Over-braiding of superconducting Rutherford cable was used for the composite insulation in this research. Braiding was a suitable alternative to fabric tape winding for achieving ultrathin insulation with required electrical breakdown voltage. A brief overview of the superconducting magnets, their application and requirements of insulation has been...
Development of novel textile preforming concepts driven by multi-objective optimisation techniques will be reported here. One of the main goals here is to completely relax the manufacturing constraints imposed by conventional textile machinery. Several examples towards this goal are presented in this paper. Robotic/mechatronic concepts have been em...
Natural fibre composites are attracting significant interest due to their potential for replacing synthetic composites at lower cost with improved environmental sustainability. However, natural fibre composites suffer from poor mechanical and interfacial properties. Here we report coating of graphene oxide (GO) and graphene flakes (G) onto natural...
Experimental behaviour of bolted joints in triaxial braided (0°/±45°) carbon fibre/epoxy composite laminates with drilled and moulded-in fastener holes has been investigated. Braided laminates were manufactured by vacuum infusion process using 12K T700S carbon fibres and Araldite LY-564 epoxy resin. Moulded-in fastener holes were formed using guide...
Graphene-based de-icing composites are of great interest due to incredible thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of graphene. Moreover, current technologies possess a number of challenges such as expensive, high power consumption, limited life time and adding extra weight to the composites. Here, we report a scalable process of making highl...
As far as the tensile properties of natural fibres as reinforcements for composites are concerned, flax fibres will stay at the top-end. However, an efficient conversion of fibre properties into their corresponding composite properties has been a challenge, due to the fibre damages done through the conventional textile methods utilised to process f...
As far as the tensile properties of natural fibres as reinforcements for composites are concerned, flax fibres will stay at the top-end. However, an efficient conversion of fibre properties into their corresponding composite properties has been a challenge, due to the fibre damages done through the conventional textile methods utilised to process f...
Accurate measurement of blood pressure is very important as high blood pressure is a major cause of cardiovascular disease. Most non-invasive blood pressure measurement systems depend on a blood pressure cuff mostly made of fabrics but these differ widely in geometry and mechanical properties. To investigate the effect of differences in cuff constr...
Continuous measurement of cardio-respiratory signals offers various kinds of information valuable for the diagnosis of disease and management of the disease process. The article reports the development of the Piezofilm yarn sensor for healthcare applications, and investigates its performance by monitoring cardio-respiratory signals of human body ov...
This work presents manufacturing of glass/polypropylene commingled yarns and analysis of low velocity impact (15J, 25J, and 35J) and compression after impact (CAI) performance of thermoset and thermoplastic composites produced from the hybrid commingled yarns. Hybrid commingled yarns were produced through an air jet nozzle at different air pressure...
Structural health monitoring (SHM) of composite structures has become paramount in aerospace industry in recent years. With advances in research and innovation, this can be achieved in real time by embedding optical fibre into the structure to be monitored. The optical fibre has been proven to be versatile for application in SHM due to its ability...
Robotic dry fibre placement technology has been shown to be able to create a quasi-interwoven structure that exhibits an increased damage initiation energy and improved damage resistance when compared against an equivalent cross-ply laminate.
3D woven composites have emerged as a new class of material with applications in various sectors such as aerospace, military, maritime, infrastructure and wind energy. Despite many advantages, there are concerns about the degradation of in-plane mechanical properties of the 3D woven composites mainly due to the tow waviness. Yarn tensions during th...
The principal component of any non-invasive blood pressure measurement system is an inflatable cuff. Different types of fabrics are used for inflatable cuffs construction. In this study, sphygmomanometric blood pressure measurement using inflatable cuffs was simulated in Abaqus and validated through experimental results. The purpose of the simulati...
Breakthrough Aerospace Materials (BAM) is a collaborative R&D project based in the UK [1]; led by industry and co-funded by the British Government via the Innovate-UK under its Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) R&T Programme. The overall objective of BAM is to develop a complete process that will enable aerospace industry (and others) to design...
Meso-scale geometrical changes during transverse compression of aligned tows have a significant influence on resin permeability during infusion as well as on the mechanical properties of the resulting polymer composites. These geometrical changes need to be captured at each and every stage of composite manufacturing and realistic geometrical models...
The effect of circular notch has been evaluated for three different architectures of three-dimensional (3D) carbon fibre woven composites (orthogonal, ORT; layer-to-layer, LTL; angle interlock, AI) through open-hole quasi-static tension and double-lap bearing strength tests in the off-axis (45 degree) direction. Damage characterisation is monitored...
Experimental behaviour of bolted joints in triaxial braided (0°/±45°) carbon fibre/epoxy composite laminates with drilled and moulded-in fastener holes has been investigated in this paper. Braided laminates were manufactured by vacuum infusion process using 12 K T700S carbon fibres (for bias and axial tows) and Araldite LY-564 epoxy resin. Moulded-...
Transverse compression response of tows during processes such as vacuum infusion or autoclave curing has significant influence on resin permeability in fabrics as well as the laminate thickness, fibre volume fraction and tow orientations in the finished composite. This paper reports macro –scale deformations in dry fibre assemblies due to transvers...
Cabon fibre composites are used where mechanical performance such as strength, stiffness and impact properties at low density is a critical parameter for engineering applications. Carbon fibre flat tape is one material which is traditionally used to manufacture three-dimensional composites in this area. Modifying the carbon fibre tape to incorporat...
This study examines the improvement of Interlaminar Fracture Toughness (IFT) of multilayered 3D glass/epoxy textile composites when through thickness reinforcement is introduced. Three stitching techniques have been examined: Modified Lockstitch (ISO-301), Single-yarn Orthogonal-stitch (ISO-205) and Double-yarn Orthogonal-stitch (ISO-205). It was f...
The increasing demands in subsea industry such as oil and gas, led to a rapidly growing need for the use of advanced, high performance, lightweight materials such as composite materials. E-glass fibre laminated pre-preg, filament wound and braided tubes were tested to destruction under hydrostatic external pressure in order to study their buckling...
This paper presents the tensile response of thin-walled composite tubes with multi-axial fibre architecture. A hybrid braid-wound layup has the potential to optimise the composite tube properties, however, stacking sequence plays a role in the failure mechanism. A braid-winding method has been used to produce stacked overwound braid layup [(±45°/0°...
Fibre-reinforced polymer matrix composite materials for engineering structures are now commonplace. Their low densities, combined with high strength and high stiffness, provide many benefits in performance and durability; when combined with the expertise of the current generation of engineers and materials scientists prepared to accept the complexi...
The increasing use of high-value carbon fibre in composites is linked with increasing waste generation: from dry fibre and prepreg offcuts during manufacturing to end-of-life parts. In this work, a novel thermoplastic tape was produced from 60 wt.% manufacturing waste carbon fibres (60 mm long) and 40 wt.% polyester (PET) fibres using a thermal con...
The increasing use of high-value carbon fibre in composites is linked with increasing waste generation: from dry fibre and prepreg offcuts during manufacturing to end-of-life parts. In this work, a novel thermoplastic tape was produced from 60 wt.% manufacturing waste carbon fibres (60 mm long) and 40 wt.% polyester fibres using a thermal consolida...
This paper presents the results of research work carried out to investigate the heating properties of nylon knitted fabric impregnated with a polymerised solution of polypyrrole. The inspection of the molecular polypyrrole electro-conductive pathways responsible for the heating effect of the knitted fabric was investigated using a scanning electron...
Three different architectures of 3D carbon fibre woven composites (orthogonal, ORT; layer-to-layer, LTL; angle interlock, AI) were tested in quasi-static uniaxial tension. Mechanical tests (tensile in on-axis of warp and weft directions as well as 45° off-axis) were carried out with the aim to study the loading direction sensitivity of these 3D wov...
The process parameters of two-dimensional braiding can influence the braided preform specification. Braid carrier tension has a combined operation of providing a set tension to the fibre tow as well as compensation of the tow.
This paper reports a geometrical modeling technique for tubular braided structures based on the generalized rose curve as the mathematical model. By analysis of the braiding process, the modeling method for the tubular braided structures is derived based on the intersection of braiding surface and helical surface. As application of this method, bra...
This paper examines the potential of low-cost thermoplastic fibres in improving the impact damage resistance and damage tolerance of thermoset (glass-epoxy) composites. Polypropylene (PP) fibres, commodity fibres without any surface modifications, have been incorporated at tow-scale with the aid of air jet commingling process. Glass-PP hybrid yarns...
Damage initiation and evolution of three-dimensional (3D) orthogonal woven carbon fibre composite (3DOWC) is investigated experimentally and numerically. Meso-scale homogenisation of the representative volume element (RVE) is utilised to predict the elastic properties, simulate damage initiation and evolution when loaded in tension. The effect of i...
Late-stage fatigue damage of an E-glass/epoxy 3D orthogonal non-crimp textile composite loaded in the warp direction has been investigated using a combination of mechanical testing, X-ray micro computed tomography (μCT), optical microscopy and finite element modelling. Stiffness reduction and energy dissipated per cycle were found to be complementa...
Design and manufacture of extensively instrumented composite test-scale rotor blades. This paper will detail the structural design and manufacture of scaled rotor blades for use on a state-of-the-art wind tunnel rotor test rig. The rig will be capable of measuring the unsteady loads on blades, the corresponding wakes and the associated aero-acousti...
3D woven composites have the potential to revolutionise structural composites, provided the knock-down in in-plane properties can be minimised through weave optimisation. Since binder tow interactions produce waviness in warp and weft tows, 3D weaving process needs optimisation. This paper presents a predictive modelling tool based on Representativ...
There are vast possibilities in fibre architecture design of 3D woven reinforcement. This paper considers the application of Genetic Algorithm (GA) in 3D woven composites optimisation. A set of real and integral variables, representing 3D fibre architecture, are formulated into a mixed integer Genetic Algorithm. The objective function is evaluated...