Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering

The Microsystem Technology group have had an article translated to German for publication in the journal Photonik.

The article "Integrierte plasmonische Farbfilter für CMOS-Bildsensoren", or "Plasmonic Colour Filters integrated with CMOS Image Sensors", was written by Professor David Cumming and PhD student Iain McCrindle and is available for subscribers to view on the journal website, www.photonik.de.

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Low-cost manufacture of high-quality steered-fibre laminates

University of Glasgow, Dr Philip Harrison

Tailoring of advanced composite laminates is a key element in the development of next generation composite structures. Steered fibre laminates, also known as variable stiffness composite panels, offer interesting potential for structural optimisation, having previously been shown to possess several advantages over straight fibre laminates, such as (i) improved resistance to buckling (ii) postponement of ply failure and (iii) controllable multi-stability, useful in the design of morphing structures. The manufacture of steered-fibre laminates usually involves the use of automated tape laying (ATL) machines which are generally relatively slow and expensive. The idea of the proposed research is to create a novel design and manufacture process to produce high-quality steered fibre 2-D laminates at a fraction of the cost of those manufactured using ATL machines. The new manufacture technique will be simple, efficient and sustainable with a low cycle time and importantly, the manufactured 2-D laminates will be able to undergo secondary forming processes to produce complex 3-D steered-fibre laminate geometries without inducing defects in the forming steered-fibre laminate. To guide the manufacture process a unique computer aided engineering design tool will be developed that can predict full-field fibre orientation distributions that are optimised to suit a given loading condition.

First published: 13 August 2012