Louis Laberge Lebel
Professeur agrégé au Département de génie mécanique
Polytechnique Montréal
A significant part of current aircraft and automotive structures are fabricated using composites materials. In the aerospace industry, composite material components must be assembled using heavy titanium fasteners since structural bonding is not certifiable by governmental authorities. Moreover, the drilling precision requirements are much greater than for metallic structure fastening. Metallic fasteners in composite structures generates risks of corrosion and improper electromagnetic shielding. The use of composite fastener as an alternative have been proposed since the 1950s. The composite rivet is of similar material to the surrounding composite structure, eliminating the galvanic corrosion issues. Also, the composite rivet's low electric conductivity will mitigate the risks associated with electrostatic discharge when using metallic fasteners. Here will be presented the latest developments on thermoplastic composite riveting made at the ACFSlab. Thermoplastic composite rivet blanks are produced using the pultruding unidirectional or braided commingled. The rivet setting operation involves fast joule-heating of the rivet blank followed by a force induced deformation of the rivet into the structure. A robotized riveting machine was designed to study and determine the optimal riveting parameters. Mechanical performance of simple joint configurations shows a two-fold increase in specific mechanical properties compared to similar aerospace grade metallic rivets. The composite rivet technology that has the potential to reduce cost associated with drilling and assembly, improve the safety, lower the weight of aircrafts and automobiles.
La présentation aura lien en ligne et en anglais.
Bibliographie
Louis Laberge Lebel is associate professor at Polytechnique Montreal and since 2014. He is leading the Advanced Composite and Fiber Structures Laboratory (ACFSlab). In 2021-22, he held a visiting professor position at Gifu University, Japan, as a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) research fellow. Professor Laberge Lebel has also worked in the aerospace industry as a materials and process engineer and researcher for more than 3 years at Bombardier Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney Canada. Prior to that, he was a JSPS post-doctoral fellow at the Kyoto Institute of Technology. Prof Laberge Lebel has contributed 34 journal publications and 9 patent applications. His main research interests are textile composites, manufacturing, modelling, nano- and bio-composites.
