Members

IMMC

Sarah Gayot
PhD student
Master
Contact

Main project: Improving the properties of glass fiber reinforced acrylic thermoplastic resin based composites
Funding: Private company & UCLouvain
Supervisor(s): Thomas Pardoen

For the manufacturing of continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites (CFRTP), certain monomers can be infused through glass fabric and then polymerized in situ, in order to make a thermoplastic composite part. However, defects - e.g. porosity - can occur in the material, due to the thickness of the laminates and the shrinkage of the resin matrix during polymerization. Such phenomena must be understood, as well as their effects on the mechanical properties of the final composite part.

The originality of this work lies in the very nature of the polymeric matrix used for manufacturing the composite parts, which is thermoplastic instead of thermoset. Little is known about the behaviour of such thermoplastic composites, especially at a microscopic scale. During this PhD, we will try to understand how defects occurring in the material can influence the structural properties of the CFRTP, and we will try to mitigate (or at least control) the incidence of such defects. This will imply a better knowledge of how usual characterisation techniques can be applied from thin to thick composite parts. In particular, digital simulation will be used so as to predict the properties of thick composite parts from those of thinner samples.

IMMC main research direction(s):
Processing and characterisation of materials
Chemical engineering
Solid mechanics

Keywords:
composite
finite elements
polymer

Research group(s): IMAP
Collaborations: Christian Bailly, IMCN

Recent publications

See complete list of publications

Journal Articles

1. Klavzer, Nathan; Gayot, Sarah; Coulombier, Michaël; Nysten, Bernard; Pardoen, Thomas. Nanoscale digital image correlation at elementary fibre/matrix level in polymer–based composites. In: Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, Vol. 168, p. 107455 (2023). doi:10.1016/j.compositesa.2023.107455. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/272588

2. Pardoen, Thomas; Klavzer, Nathan; Gayot, Sarah; Van Loock, Frederik; Chevalier, Jérémy; Morelle, Xavier; Destoop, Vincent; Lani, Frédéric; Camanho, Pedro; Brassart, Laurence; Nysten, Bernard; Bailly, Christian. Nanomechanics serving polymer-based composite research. In: Comptes Rendus. Physique, Vol. 22, no. S3, p. 1-22 (2021). doi:10.5802/crphys.56. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/248244

3. Gayot, Sarah; Bailly, Christian; Pardoen, Thomas; Gérard, Pierre; Van Loock, Frederik. Processing maps based on polymerization modelling of thick methacrylic laminates. In: Materials & Design, Vol. 196, p. 109170 (2020). doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2020.109170. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/235892

Conference Papers

1. Gayot, Sarah; Bailly, Christian; Pardoen, Thomas; Gérard, Pierre; Van Loock, Frederik. A computationally efficient thermomechanical model for the in-situ polymerization of a methyl methacrylate-based resin in a thick glass fiber laminate. In: Proceedings of the ASC 35th Technical Conference, 2020 xxx. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/235896

2. Gayot, Sarah; Van Loock, Frederik; Gérard,Pierre; Pardoen, Thomas; Bailly, Christian. Vacuum infusion of thick glass-fibre reinforced methacrylic composites: computationally efficient modelling of temperature profiles and kinetics during in-situ polymerization. 2020 xxx. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/235894

3. Gayot, Sarah; Bailly, Christian; Pardoen, Thomas; Chevalier, Jérémy; Gérard, Pierre. Relationship between processing parameters and mechanical properties of thick glass fibre reinforced pmma composites. In: Conference proceedings - COMPOSITES 2019, 2019, p. P.81 xxx. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/226416

4. Gayot, Sarah; Gérard, Pierre; Pardoen, Thomas; Bailly, Christian. Relationships between processing parameters, mechanical and chemical properties of thick glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic methacrylic composites. 2019 xxx. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/235893