Cohesive Zone Modeling of the Interface Fracture in Full-Thermoplastic Hybrid Composites for Lightweight Application.

With the increasing demand for lightweight and high-performance materials in the automotive and aerospace industries, full-thermoplastic hybrid composites have emerged as a pivotal solution, offering enhanced mechanical properties and design flexibility. This work aims to numerically model the fracture strength in full-thermoplastic hybrid composites made by forming and overmolding organosheets. The mode I fracture was investigated by modeling the behavior of T-joint specimens under a tensile test following the cohesive zone modeling (CZM) approach. The sample was designed to replicate the connection between the laminate and the overmolded part. Double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens were manufactured with organosheets and tested to mode I opening to determine the interlaminar fracture toughness. The fracture toughness out of the mode I test with DCB specimens was used to define the CZM parameters that describe the traction-separation law. Later, due to the particular geometry of the T-join specimens that under tensile load work close to pure mode I, the cohesive parameters were determined by inverse analysis, i.e., calibrating the theoretical models to match experimental results. The fracture resistance T-joint specimens appeared dependent on the fiber-bridging phenomenon during the delamination. In particular, the presence of fiber-bridging visible from the experimental results has been replicated by virtual analyses, and it is observed that it leads to a higher energy value before the interface's complete breakage. Moreover, a correspondence between the mode I fracture toughness of the DCB specimen and T-joint specimens was observed.

Wetting Characteristics of Laser-Ablated Hierarchical Textures Replicated by Micro Injection Molding.

Texturing can be used to functionalize the surface of plastic parts and, in particular, to modify the interaction with fluids. Wetting functionalization can be used for microfluidics, medical devices, scaffolds, and more. In this research, hierarchical textures were generated on steel mold inserts using femtosecond laser ablation to transfer on plastic parts surface via injection molding. Different textures were designed to study the effects of various hierarchical geometries on the wetting behavior. The textures are designed to create wetting functionalization while avoiding high aspect ratio features, which are complex to replicate and difficult to manufacture at scale. Nano-scale ripples were generated over the micro-scale texture by creating laser-induced periodic surface structures. The textured molds were then replicated by micro-injection molding using polypropylene and poly(methyl methacrylate). The static wetting behavior was investigated on steel inserts and molded parts and compared to the theoretical values obtained from the Cassie-Baxter and Wenzel models. The experimental results showed correlations between texture design, injection molding replication, and wetting properties. The wetting behavior on the polypropylene parts followed the Cassie-Baxter model, while for PMMA, a composite wetting state of Cassie-Baxter and Wenzel was observed.

Physical, Mechanical, and Biological Properties of PMMA-Based Composite Bone Cement Containing Silver-Doped Bioactive and Antibacterial Glass Particles with Different Particles Sizes.

In the present work, antibacterial composite bone cement was designed by introducing a bioactive and antibacterial glass into a commercial formulation. The effect of glass particles' addition on the curing parameters of the polymeric matrix was evaluated; moreover, the influence of the glass particle size on the glass dispersion, compressive and bending strength, bioactivity, and antibacterial effect was estimated. The results evidence a delay in the polymerization kinetics of the composite cement, which nevertheless complies with the requirements of the ISO standard. Morphological characterization provides evidence of good dispersion of the glass in the polymeric matrix and its exposition on the cement surface. The different glass grain sizes do not affect the composites' bioactivity and compressive strength, while a slight reduction in bending strength was observed for samples containing glass powders with greater dimensions. The size of the glass particles also appears to have an effect on the antibacterial properties, since the composites containing larger glass particles do not produce an inhibition halo towards the S. aureus strain. The obtained results demonstrate that, by carefully tailoring the glass amount and size, a multifunctional device for artificial joint fixing, temporary prostheses, or spinal surgery can be obtained.

Texturing Technologies for Plastics Injection Molding: A Review.

Texturing is an engineering technology that can be used to enable surface functionalization in the plastics injection molding industry. A texture is defined as the geometrical modification of the topography by addition of surface features that are characterized by a smaller scale than the overall surface dimensions. Texturing is added to products to create novel functionalities of plastic products and tools, which can be exploited to modify interactions with other materials in contact with the surface. The geometry, dimensions, and positioning on the surface define the function of a texture and its properties. This work reviews and discuss the wide range of texturing technologies available in the industry. The advantages and limitations of each technology are presented to support the development of new surface engineering applications in the plastics manufacturing industry.

Improving Numerical Modeling Accuracy for Fiber Orientation and Mechanical Properties of Injection Molded Glass Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastics.

Local fiber alignment in fiber-reinforced thermoplastics is governed by complex flows during the molding process. As fiber-induced material anisotropy leads to non-homogeneous effective mechanical properties, accurate prediction of the final orientation state is critical for integrated structural simulations of these composites. In this work, a data-driven inverse modeling approach is proposed to improve the physics-based structural simulation of short glass fiber reinforced thermoplastics. The approach is divided into two steps: (1) optimization of the fiber orientation distribution (FOD) predicted by the Reduce Strain Closure (RSC) model, and (2) identification of the composite's mechanical properties used in the Ramberg-Osgood (RO) multiscale structural model. In both steps, the identification of the model's parameters was carried out using a Genetic Algorithm. Artificial Neural Networks were used as a machine learning-based surrogate model to approximate the simulation results locally and reduce the computational time. X-ray micro-computed tomography and tensile tests were used to acquire the FOD and mechanical data, respectively. The optimized parameters were then used to simulate a tensile test for a specimen injection molded in a dumbbell-shaped cavity selected as a case study for validation. The FOD prediction error was reduced by 51% using the RSC optimized coefficients if compared with the default coefficients of the RSC model. The proposed data-driven approach, which calculates both the RSC coefficients and the RO parameters by inverse modeling from experimental data, allowed improvement in the prediction accuracy by 43% for the elastic modulus and 59% for the tensile strength, compared with the non-optimized analysis.

Editorial for the Special Issue on Advances in Micro and Nano Manufacturing: Process Modeling and Applications.

Micro- and nano-manufacturing technologies have been developed in research and industrial environments to support product miniaturization and the integration of new functionalities [...].

Modeling the Adhesion Bonding Strength in Injection Overmolding of Polypropylene Parts.

In this work, the bonding strength of overmolded polypropylene is investigated and modeled. A T-joint specimen was designed to replicate the bonding between a base and an overmolded stem made of the same polymer: a previously molded plaque was used for the base, and the stem was directly overmolded. The effect of melt temperature, holding pressure, and localized heating was investigated following the design of experiments approach. Both the melt and base temperature positively affect the welding strength. On the contrary, the holding pressure negatively contributed, as the crystallization temperature significantly increases with pressure. Then, the bonding strength of the specimens was predicted using a non-isothermal healing model. Moreover, the quadratic distance of diffusion (based on the self-diffusion model) was calculated and correlated with the bonding strength prediction. The non-isothermal healing model well predicts the bonding strength when the reptation time is calculated within the first 0.09 s of the interface temperature evolution. The prediction error ranges from 1% to 35% for the specimens overmolded at high and low melt and base temperatures, respectively.

Functionalization of Plastic Parts by Replication of Variable Pitch Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures.

Surface functionalization of plastic parts has been studied and developed for several applications. However, demand for the development of reliable and profitable manufacturing strategies is still high. Here we develop and characterize a new process chain for the versatile and cost-effective production of sub-micron textured plastic parts using laser ablation. The study includes the generation of different sub-micron structures on the surface of a mold using femtosecond laser ablation and vario-thermal micro-injection molding. The manufactured parts and their surfaces are characterized in consideration of polymer replication and wetting behavior. The results of the static contact angle measurements show that replicated Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures (LIPSSs) always increase the hydrophobicity of plastic parts. A maximum contact angle increase of 20% was found by optimizing the manufacturing thermal boundary conditions. The wetting behavior is linked to the transition from a Wenzel to Cassie-Baxter state, and is crucial in optimizing the injection molding cycle time.

Injection molded polymeric micropatterns for bone regeneration study.

An industrially feasible process for the fast mass-production of molded polymeric micro-patterned substrates is here presented. Microstructured polystyrene (PS) surfaces were obtained through micro injection molding (µIM) technique on directly patterned stamps realized with a new zirconia-based hybrid spin-on system able to withstand 300 cycles at 90 °C. The use of directly patterned stamps entails a great advantage on the overall manufacturing process as it allows a fast, flexible, and simple one-step process with respect to the use of milling, laser machining, electroforming techniques, or conventional lithographic processes for stamp fabrication. Among the different obtainable geometries, we focused our attention on PS replicas reporting 2, 3, and 4 µm diameter pillars with 8, 9, 10 µm center-to-center distance, respectively. This enabled us to study the effect of the substrate topography on human mesenchymal stem cells behavior without any osteogenic growth factors. Our data show that microtopography affected cell behavior. In particular, calcium deposition and osteocalcin expression enhanced as diameter and interpillar distance size increases, and the 4-10 surface was the most effective to induce osteogenic differentiation.

Antibiotic-free composite bone cements with antibacterial and bioactive properties. A preliminary study.

Two bone cements (Palacos R® and Palacos LV®) based on polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), clinically used in several cemented prosthetic devices, have been enriched with silver containing bioactive glass powders and compared with the plain commercial ones. The obtained composite cements have been subjected to a preliminary characterization by means of morphological and compositional analyses, compression mechanical tests, bioactivity test (by soaking into simulated body fluids), leaching tests and in vitro antibacterial test (count of colonies forming units, McFarland index evaluation, inhibition zone evaluation). The glass powders appeared uniformly dispersed inside the PMMA matrix and good mechanical properties (in compression) have been reached. The composite cements showed a bioactive behavior (since they developed hydroxyapatite on their surface after soaking in simulated body fluid) and a good antibacterial performance. The release of silver ions, which is the principal reason of antibacterial properties, is mainly reached after the first hours of contact with the leaching solution, as it is expected for a reasonable prevention of bacterial colonization during in vivo applications.