Background

Composites are an important class of materials, combining a matrix with inclusions to enhance the physical properties of both. During the manufacturing process, the matrix material, a resin, is pushed through the reinforcing fabric as a liquid, and the resin is then cured to form the solid end-product. A key aim in this process is to avoid the generation of voids in the matrix which would weaken the material.

Expected Outcomes

The company will provide time-series sensor data from 16 dielectric sensors arranged in a grid covering the sample. Starting from the time-series data, the challenge will be to visualise the resin front as it advances.

Proposed approach

The visualisation problem here is a classical one in Electrical Impedance Tomography (and more broadly the field of image reconstruction), and various open-source software packages exist to solve this problem.

Extensions

Going beyond existing approaches could involve quantifying the uncertainty in the predicted position of the reconstructed front, or predicting other physical properties at the front, such as the pressure.