Circular design of composite products: A framework based on insights from literature and industry

Composite materials are an attractive material choice as they enable lightweight, low-maintenance products with a long lifespan. Recycling these materials, however, remains a chal-lenge. Homogeneous material composition and the use of thermoset matrices complicate repro-cessing, and result in low-grade recyclate. This means that closing the...

Circular Design of Composite Products: A Preliminary Framework Based on Insights from Literature and Industry

Composite materials are an attractive material choice as they enable lightweight, low maintenance products with a long lifespan. But closing the loop for these materials in a Circular Economy (CE) is challenging, especially for thermoset composites. In a CE, products should be designed for minimal impact while preserving their environmental and...

Structural reuse of wind turbine blades through segmentation

Composite materials offer many advantages during the use phase, but recovery at the end of a lifecycle remains a challenge. Structural reuse, where an end of life product is segmented into construction elements, may be a promising alternative. However, composites are often used in large, complex shaped products with optimised material...

Development of a Numerical Framework for Virtual Testing to Support Design of a Next Generation Thermoplastic Multifunctional Fuselage

This work summarizes the recent developments of a numerical framework to predict the mechanical behaviour of thermoplastic composites. It supports the design of a next generation thermoplastic multi-functional fuselage which uses advanced joining techniques such as thermoplastic welding to reduce both weight and cost by limiting the amount of...

Fabrication and Design of Wood-Based High-Performance Composites

Delignified densified wood is a new promising and sustainable material that possesses the potential to replace synthetic materials, such as glass fiber reinforced composites, due to its excellent mechanical properties. Delignified wood, however, is rather fragile in a wet state, which makes handling and shaping challenging. Here we present...