Composite-to-Metal Jointing Technology

The SMI approach is to evaluate the current joints, with particular attention to the failure locations and failure modes and make specific changes and improvements to these areas and increase the overall properties and efficiencies of the joints. One of the biggest mistakes that is still made is to substitute one material with another with out making allowances for the unique properties of characteristics of the new material. Obvious examples are to replace metals with ceramics without taking account of the brittleness of the ceramic or to replace metals with composites without accommodating the anisotropy of the fiber reinforcements. Existing metal to composite joints contain deficiencies that can be overcome by designing around each material's strengths and weaknesses. SMI will use typical joints to analyze and devise means of overcoming the weaknesses. Choice of materials, configurations and processing will all be considered.FEA and test coupons (using control configurations) will validate the improvements.