Main activities:

Approaching to the manufacturing of structural components in composite materials on the base of designs that encompass a combination of different materials. These multi-material structures include continuous fiber reinforced laminates, textile laminates, textile composites for high temperature applications, layered materials, sandwich structures with a variety of cores (honeycombs, foams, etc.), and nanoparticle reinforced polymers.

Autoclave process with vacuum bagging technique for high performance composite manufacturing.

Production of sandwich panels with honeycomb and foam cores.

Manufacturing of composite panels laminated with prepreg technique and hand lay –up.

Non-destructive testing activity for analysis and recognition of defects, performed through an ultrasonic phased-array technique.

The lab hosts the Sapienza Flight Team during the phases of manufacturing of the main structures of a radio-controlled aircraft for the AIAA/Cessna/ Raytheon Design, Build, Flight Competition taking place every year in the USA.

Research activities:

Active composites: the use of active materials like piezoceramics is proposed for developing actuation and sensing capability of structural systems. Laminated plate and shell structures with active layers have been the topic of several studies performed both from a theoretical, numerical and an experimental point of view.

Impact toughness: improvement of composite material capability to resist to low and high velocity impact with hybridization of reinforcements.

Natural fibers: improvement of biosustainability of composite materials with introduction of natural fibers and cores.

Facilities:

• Autoclave for vacuum bagging curing technique

• Olympus Omniscan MX2 Ultrasonic device with phased array probe 64 linear elements