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Sankar, Bhavani

Publications and source records attributed to Sankar, Bhavani.

8 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Uncertainty quantification in elastic constants of SiC f /SiC m tubular composites using global sensitivity analysis

Silicon carbide fiber and silicon carbide matrix (SiC f /SiC m ) tubes produced through the chemical vapor infiltration process have become a candidate cladding material in nuclear applications. The performance of this composite is influenced by many variables such as braiding angle, porosity, material properties, etc., which vary over a range of values due to the inherent fluctuations in the manufacturing process. In this study, the variability in elastic constants of SiC f /SiC m composite has been quantified through multiscale finite element (FE) simulations, variable screening, and high-fidelity surrogate modeling. The key variables dominantly affecting the elastic constants of SiC f /SiC m tubes were identified using global sensitivity analysis. A surrogate to the high-fidelity FE-based model was used in Monte Carlo simulations to generate a hundred thousand samples from which the uncertainty in elastic constants was assessed. It turned out that the coefficient of variation was less than 10%.

Materials Science↗
DOE OSTI2022

Influence of weave architecture on mechanical response of SiC f -SiC m tubular composites

Due to their high resistance to radiation damage and elevated temperature, silicon carbide fiber-reinforced, silicon carbide matrix composites (SiC f -SiC m ) are identified as potential cladding structures for use in nuclear reactors. In this study, four composite architectures with varying ply numbers along the thickness direction and different biaxial or triaxial plain weave orientations at either 45° or 60°, were systematically evaluated under various stress states to assess the influence of weave architecture on mechanical performance. Experiments were conducted on SiC f -SiC m composite tubes under tensile hoop, axial compression, and rotating flexural loading to evaluate the mechanical response and investigate the failure modes using high-speed imaging and digital image correlation (DIC) techniques. It was found that for tensile hoop burst and flexural loading, the braiding angle had the most significant influence on the strength of the composite, whereas the effect of fiber angle was more limited for compression testing. Under axial compression a unique failure mode where a microcrack nucleates and grows only to a length equal to the thickness of a single yarn was identified. This crack growth behavior is reflected as periodic oscillations in the load-displacement response. For both axial and hoop loading, regardless of weave angle and number of plies, failure always initiated parallel to the tube axis in a single yarn and the cumulative interaction of these microcracks lead to either axial burst or fracture at an angle to the tube axis along a yarn. Furthermore, these results point to the importance of customizing the design of tube architecture for enhanced performance in specified nuclear applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mach Conference, 2022.

There has been considerable interest in chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) manufactured silicon carbide fiber and silicon carbide matrix (SiC/SiC) composite tubes due to their superior mechanical properties. The SiC/SiC tubes are known to remain stable even after prolonged exposure to radiation. However, there are many variables in the manufacturing of SiC/SiC composite tubes such as elastic constants of constituent SiC fiber and SiC matrix, braiding angle, porosity, and others whose values vary over a range. The intention is to identify the distribution of elastic constants of SiC/SiC tubes which would help model the performance of the novel cladding material. To do so, a sensitivity analysis will be carried out to determine the dominant variables that influence the elastic constants of SiC/SiC tubes. A chosen number of combinations of dominant variables will be sampled through the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method. The elastic constants of composite tube namely Young's moduli in the circumferential and longitudinal direction, Poisson's ratio, and shear modulus will be calculated at sampled points through finite element (FE) analysis. A polynomial response surface (PRS) will be built for each of the elastic constants to be used as a surrogate to FE analysis. Once the predictive accuracy of PRS is verified at the validation set of data points, the PRS will be invoked 105 times in Monte Carlo simulations (MCS). The uncertainty can be quantified by calculating the coefficient of variation (CV) based on MCS-generated data which will be presented at the conference.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Novel Rotating Flexure-Test Technique for Brittle Materials with Circular Geometries

The four-point bend test is one of the simplest and often the preferred flexural strength evaluation method for brittle materials. In this loading mode, fracture often initiates from a critical surface (or subsurface) flaw when subjected to a tensile stress state. However, if the critical flaw exists on the compression side of the test specimen, it may not activate to grow a crack and hence the resulting flexural strength will be higher than the true value. The goal of this study is to measure the true flexural strength of a solid or hollow cylindrical brittle specimen by ensuring that failure occurs at its weakest point by rotating along its longitudinal axis, thereby exposing and activating its critical surface flaw during a four-point bend test. A novel test fixture has been designed and fabricated, and the true flexural strengths of cylindrical brittle and quasi-brittle tubular specimens have been measured and compared to existing experimental data obtained through traditional four-point bend tests. In this work, experimental results showcase the orientation dependance on flexural strength for various materials. Additionally, similarities between experimental findings and those available in literature, including observations of fracture surfaces and relationships between surface roughness and material strength, are discussed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Identification of Distribution of Elastic Constants of SiC/SiC Braided Tubes

There has been considerable interest in chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) manufactured silicon carbide fiber and silicon carbide matrix (SiCf/SiCm) composite tubes due to their superior mechanical properties. There are many parameters in the manufacturing of SiCf/SiCm composite tubes such as elastic constants of constituent SiC fiber and SiC matrix, braiding angle, porosity, and others whose values vary over a range. A sensitivity analysis will be carried out to determine the dominant parameters among the abovementioned ones. We intend to determine the variability in elastic constants of SiCf/SiCm composite tubes considering the variability in dominant parameters. A chosen number of combinations of dominant variables will be sampled through Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method. The elastic constants of composite tube namely Young's moduli in circumferential and longitudinal direction, Poisson's ratio and shear modulus will be calculated at sampled points through finite element (FE) analysis. A polynomial response surface (PRS) will be built for each of the elastic constants to be used a surrogate to FE analysis. once the predictive accuracy of PRS is verified at the validation set of data points, the PRS will be invoked 105 times in Monte Carlo simulations (MCS). The variability can be calculated based on MCS-generated data which will be presented at the conference.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2005

Micromechanics, Fracture Mechanics and Gas Permeability of Composite Laminates for Cryogenic Storage Systems

A micromechanics method is developed to investigate microcrack propagation in a liquid hydrogen composite tank at cryogenic temperature. The unit cell is modeled using square and hexagonal shapes depends on fiber and matrix layout from microscopic images of composite laminates. Periodic boundary conditions are applied to the unit cell. The temperature dependent properties are taken into account in the analysis. The laminate properties estimated by the micromechanics method are compared with empirical solutions using constituent properties. The micro stresses in the fiber and matrix phases based on boundary conditions in laminate level are calculated to predict the formation of microcracks in the matrix. The method is applied to an actual liquid hydrogen storage system. The analysis predicts micro stresses in the matrix phase are large enough to cause microcracks in the composite. Stress singularity of a transverse crack normal to a ply-interface is investigated to predict the fracture behavior at cryogenic conditions using analytical and finite element analysis. When a transverse crack touches a ply-interface of a composite layer with same fiber orientation, the stress singularity is equal to 1/2. When the transverse crack propagates to a stiffer layer normal to the ply-direction, the singularity becomes less than 1/2 and vice versa. Finite element analysis is performed to predict the fracture toughness of a laminated beam subjected to fracture loads measured by four-point bending tests at room and cryogenic temperatures. As results, the fracture load at cryogenic temperature is significantly lower than that at room temperature. However, when thermal stresses are taken into consideration, for both cases of room and cryogenic temperatures, the difference of the fracture toughness becomes insignificant. The result indicates fracture toughness is a characteristic property, which is independent to temperature changes. The experimental analysis is performed to investigate the effect of cryogenic cycling on permeability for various composite material systems. Textile composites have lower permeability than laminated composites even with increasing number of cryogenic cycle. Nano-particles dispersed in laminated composites do not show improvement on permeability. The optical inspection is performed to investigate the microcrack propagation and void content in laminated composites and compared the microscopic results before and after cryogenic cycling.

Choi, Sukjoo↗
NASA NTRS2002

Optimal Design of Functionally Graded Metallic Foam Insulations

The focus of our work has been on developing an insight into the physics that govern the optimum design of thermal insulation for use in thermal protection systems of launch vehicle. Of particular interest was to obtain optimality criteria for designing foam insulations that have density (or porosity) distributions through the thickness for optimum thermal performance. We investigate the optimum design of functionally graded thermal insulation for steady state heat transfer through the foam. We showed that the heat transfer in the foam has competing modes, of radiation and conduction. The problem assumed a fixed inside temperature of 400 K and varied the aerodynamic surface heating on the outside surface from 0.2 to 1.0 MW/sq m. The thermal insulation develops a high temperature gradient through the thickness. Investigation of the model developed for heat conduction in foams showed that at high temperatures (as on outside wall) intracellular radiation dominates the heat transfer in the foam. Minimizing radiation requires reducing the pore size, which increases the density of the foam. At low temperatures (as on the inside wall), intracellular conduction (of the metal and air) dominates the heat transfer. Minimizing conduction requires increasing the pore size. This indicated that for every temperature there was an optimum value of density that minimized the heat transfer coefficient. Two optimization studies were performed. One was to minimize the heat transmitted though a fixed thickness insulation by varying density profiles. The second was to obtain the minimum mass insulation for specified thickness. Analytical optimality criteria were derived for the cases considered. The optimality condition for minimum heat transfer required that at each temperature we find the density that minimizes the heat transfer coefficient. Once a relationship between the optimum heat transfer coefficient and the temperature was found, the design problem reduced to the solution of a simple nonlinear differential equation. Preliminary results of this work were presented at the American Society of Composites meeting, and the final version was submitted for publication in the AIAA Journal. In addition to minimizing the transmitted heat, we investigated the optimum design for minimum weight given an acceptable level of heat transmission through the insulation. The optimality criterion developed was different from that obtained for minimizing beat transfer coefficient. For minimum mass design, we had to find for a given temperature the optimum density, which minimized the logarithmic derivative of the insulation thermal conductivity with respect to its density. The logarithmic derivative is defined as the ratio of relative change in the dependent response (thermal conductivity) to the relative change in the independent variable (density). The results have been documented as a conference paper that will be presented at the upcoming AIAA.

Haftka, Raphael T.↗