Atomistic and Finite Element Modeling for Efficient Recycling of Polymer Composite Materials

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRPs) have emerged as indispensable materials in diverse industries, owing to their exceptional strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion resistance, and design flexibility. This work explores the pivotal role of CFRPs in modern applications, ranging from aerospace and automotive engineering to sports equipment and renewable energy technologies. As industries increasingly adopt CFRPs to enhance performance and fuel efficiency, the demand for these advanced composites continues to grow. However, the widespread use of CFRPs has led to concerns regarding their growing request and their environmental impact. This work sheds light on the challenges associated with recovery and reuse of recycled carbon fibers and highlights the pressing need for competitive and sustainable solutions for this matter. As the global awareness of environmental sustainability grows, recycling CFRPs has gained momentum as an essential practice to mitigate environmental repercussions and foster a circular economy. In this work, are reported some investigations on the use of computer simulations to predict the behavior of recycling processes such as solvolysis and of CFRPs born from recycled carbon fibers. In particular, Molecular Dynamics simulations are performed to investigate the role of water models that can be used in a future simulation for supercritical solvolysis processes. While, Finite Element Analysis is used to create a Multi-scale model capable of characterize different CFRPs specimen without performing experimental tests. To conclude, this thesis includes a validation process of the FEA model, with a comparison of results obtained experimentally at Dallara Automobili.