Projects

STRIKE-Cu – Surface Treatment for Reinforced Interfaces against Known Electrical events

The application of carbon fiber reinforced composites (CFRC) has a wide spectrum ranging from aerospace to prosthetics due to its light weight, strength and stiffness. The need for implementation of carbon fiber-based composites in aerospace has risen to a greater extent as it reduces the fuel consumption to a greater extent by reflecting on the weight of the overall structure. One way to protect the structure from such sudden high temperature, highly intense lightning strike is to coat the structure with a material with high electrical and thermal conductivity. Copper coating can be leveraged as a great coating material for this application. Researchers have utilized different methods like physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), thermal spray coating (TSC) in the past but each process has its downside especially the temperature involved during the coating process. Cold spray deposition on the other hand is a process where deposition happens through severe plastic deformation at supersonic speeds which is the core difference between cold spray and other processes. In this project we are leveraging novel strategies to deposit copper coating on CFRP using cold spray technique followed by detailed microstructural analyses and material characterizations.