CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/576646
OCTOBER 2015 88 CompositesWorld ยป Materials Sciences Corp. (MSC, Horsham, PA, US) was established in 1970 by a group of scientists who helped develop the constituent relations that describe the behavior of composites. Performing research for NASA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the US Departments of Defense and Energy, MSC was an elite materials engineering company from the start. Carbon/carbon was one of the frst materials MSC analyzed. "It cost $30,000 to make one cubic inch," recalls MSC president Tom Cassin. "We had to convince the US Air Force that we had the constituent models that would accurately predict behavior without having to manufacture and test material samples." Tis ability to develop CAD software to model and simulate the micromechanics of materials has become a foundational exper- tise for MSC. It developed, for example, the MAT162 module for LS DYNA, a multiphysics simulation software platform produced by Livermore Software (Livermore, CA, US). "Te original target was to simulate impact response," says Cassin, "but it is now used for a variety of dynamic load analyses." MSC also developed two other commercially available software programs: TEXTLINK is one, written for textile analysis. "We can model angle interlock archi- tectures and set their depth within the 3D textile," Cassin notes, "and also simulate z-pinning. So our understanding of these fabrics informs our ability to design and produce these for composites applications." Te other, BONDMASTER, is for modelling adhesively bonded joints. MSC also has developed programs for thermal, acoustic and wave-propagation analysis as well. "Complementary to all of these computer-aided design, engineering and prediction tools is our testing lab," says Cassin, where MSC can verify and validate (V&V;) its models. "We have to manufacture parts using a specifc manufacturing process and then test to confrm the properties we have predicted. We also verify batch-to-batch variation in fbers and matrices." Cassin explains that all of this provides the substantiation for B-basis By Ginger Gardiner / Senior Editor MSC draws on four decades of experience and computer modeling expertise to develop novel composite materials with the potential to make a big impact. Materials Sciences Corp.: Multifunctional composites