We have a crappy one here, but it gets the job done. There is also another, better maintained one in our ME dept building across the street. We also have ANOTHER export controlled bldg, which equipment, and a 5axis CNC. huge grad program here, that is for sure. We have our researchers going back for classes and sometimes transferring TO gradschool all the time. Gonna post some videos soon with out manufacturing area.
[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAMlNWZkhYE”]Maufacturing lab - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqa5yYd3bhA”]Manufacturing lab - YouTube[/ame]
Hmm a robot like that in the composites area. I can only imagine it has something to do with AFP? Thanks for taking us on a tour Riff!
Yup, something like that. I think it will have an IR/Flame/RF heating head. Looks like a 12" wide roll, so not much for complex molds 
Im jealous of your tooling 
I hope the application deadline for masters and PhD candidates isn’t soon, I want to apply to your university!
Hi Canyon, thanks for all the hard work you do for the composites field.
I looked for the report you mentioned but didn’t find it. I’m very interested in what you found with regards to material properties vs vacuum levels. Particularly failure modes. May you share?
Also, what has been your experience with manufacturer’s published data compared to tests you’ve performed? For example, what was the material and resin used for the samples you showed in the video and then what did you measure for strength and stiffness for each?
Thanks- and keep up the great engineering.
Hey HarrisonAero,
The vacuum level vs strength results were remarkably inconsistent. In general as the vacuum level rose the unidirectional performed better in terms of moduli, failure stress and Weibull modulus, but the bidirectional did worse.
I wasn’t able to analyze the specific failure modes. I’ve read this book a few times mostly for the pictures but I didn’t have the equipment to properly inspect the fibers unfortunately.
http://ebookee.org/Failure-Analysis-and-Fractography-of-Polymer-Composites_658620.html
In terms of the manufacturer’s data, for those tensile test coupons there were none, since I was the one who selected the resin and fibers. The properties did fall far short of the theoretical Ef*vf+em(1-vf) though.
Did I answer all your questions?
If you have more let me know! If you’d like I can email you my results. I’ve disabled .xlsx uploads to prevent spammers from uploading VBA viruses.