A materials informatics framework based on reduced-order models for extracting structure-property linkages of additively manufactured continuous fiber-reinforced polymer composites

The innovative combination of additive manufacturing (AM) and continuous fiber-reinforced polymer composites (CFRPCs) confers products with the dual advantages of integrated manufacturing and designability of properties, but lack an efficient and reliable method for property prediction. This study presents a materials informatics framework using reduced-order models and machine learning (ML) to extract the structure-property (SP) linkages between microstructures and macroscopic elastic properties of AM-CFRPCs. The initial step involves generating microstructural 2D cross-sections and representative volume elements (RVEs) with random fiber and pore distributions based on the minimum potential method. Then, finite element (FE) calculations are performed on RVEs to obtain nine macroscopic elastic properties. Following that, the quantification and dimensionality reduction of the 2D cross-sectional dataset are conducted separately using two-point spatial correlations and principal component analysis (PCA). Finally, a Bayesian optimized composite kernel support vector regression (CK-SVR) algorithm is used to effectively establish complex mapping relationships between the reduced-order representations of the microstructures and the mechanical properties. Despite the reduced-order dataset containing only 3-6 variables, the framework generates an interpretable model exhibiting excellent accuracy with all predicted R2 values surpassing 0.91. Therefore, this framework presents a prospective solution for expediting the design and optimization of AM-CFRPCs.Highlights A materials informatics scheme is proposed to predict the 9 elastic properties of AM-CFRPCs. Microstructures are quantified and dimensionally reduced by two-point statistics and PCA. SP linkages are established between 2D cross-sections and 3D macromechanical properties. Modified CK-SVR exhibits higher prediction accuracy compared to conventional models. In this study, the MI reduced-order model framework is extended to the extraction of structure-property linkages for additively manufactured continuous fiber-reinforced polymer composites. The stochastic 2D cross-sectional dataset and the corresponding 3D RVEs dataset are first generated based on the real microstructure. Secondly, the mechanical property parameters of RVEs are obtained by micromechanical simulations. The 2D cross-sectional dataset of microstructures is then characterized and downscaled. Finally, a machine learning algorithm is used to extract the complex structure-property linkages between the set of low-dimensional representations and the set of mechanical properties. image