This blog was authored by Dr Shu Minakuchi and Dr Vincent Maes. Dr Minakuchi is currently Associate Professor and runs his own lab within the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at The University of Tokyo. He visited the University of Bristol as a Next Generation Visiting Researcher in March 2024 and was hosted by Dr Vincent K. Maes, Dr Neha Chandarana, and Dr James Kratz, who are part of the Bristol Composites Institute.
Composite manufacturing is a growing business around the world. Across all industries, companies struggle with parts not coming out of the manufacturing process as desired. The underlying issue being that consolidation, the process by which the base materials are turned into finished parts is highly dynamic and complex. While many models have been developed to analyse the process and help optimize it, validating them has been difficult due to the limited experimental tools available to monitor and inspect the consolidation behaviour in real parts.
To resolve this, Dr Minakuchi and his hosts as the Bristol Composites Institute (BCI) have combined their research developments to achieve “Enhanced Consolidation Monitoring”. Dr Minakuchi brought across his expertise and novel strip-sensor, which leverages fibre optic cables to allow shape sensing of the composite part throughout the manufacturing process. This was then combined with pressure sensor mats and thermocouple sensors, which the BCI has been using to capture the consolidation conditions. Together these provide a more complete picture that can elucidate the consolidation behaviour.
During the visit, successful experiments were carried out, the results of which will be published in a joint journal paper. The experiments and subsequent discussions have also allowed further research activities to be identified for future collaborations.
Further, Dr Minakuchi delivered 2 seminar sessions to present his broad research activities and 1 demonstration workshop to allow BCI researchers to get hands on experience with the novel shape sensors and evaluate where they may be valuable in their own activities. A visit to Southampton, which included tours of their facilities, enabled Dr Minakuchi to further expand his network in the UK.
