ATA ENGINEERING, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N141-082

Description

ATA Engineering, Inc., proposes to develop improved nonlinear material behavior models for the design of 2D and 3D woven carbon/carbon (C/C) composite thermal protection system (TPS) components. The objective of this work is to enable efficient design of 3D C/C composite TPS components and decrease the costs associated with developing new C/C composite materials. ATA's approach combines (1) probabilistic MCMC simulation to autonomously identify constituent and interface parameters for the material models that correlate to test data most accurately, (2) a GUI for unit cell design allowing rapid trade studies based on a micromechanics approach, also to serve as a preprocessor for the Abaqus coupled thermal-stress simulations, (3) a refined and efficient physics-based FEA of C/C unit cells that accounts for details of fiber, matrix, and interface behavior, using Abaqus to simulate the nonlinear response of woven composites subject to steady-state and transient pressure and thermal loads, and (4) stochastic Monte Carlo simulation to address variability in material properties and unit cell topology. Phase I will focus on demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed approach by aiming to simulate the response of a woven C/C unit cell under the conditions of a standard thermal shock test.