Fully coupled thermo-mechanical hybrid simulation

Principal investigator: Dr. Giuseppe Abbiati

Harsh environmental conditions encountered either in the vacuum space or in the atmosphere during flights at hypersonic speed pose severe challenges for aerospace structures. Critical thermo-mechanical loading scenario are well-documented also in civil structures. For example, fire loads induce a change of temperature on the order of 1000 °C degrees in a matter of tens of minutes. High-fidelity Thermo-Mechanical (TM) models play a central role in the engineering of such structures. Hybrid Simulation (HS), also known as hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) testing, represents a very promising approach for validation and calibration of high-fidelity computational models. Along this line, this project develops a proof-of-concept 4-DOF test rig that enables fully-coupled TM-HS.