Composite Materials Research Group
Personnel and Research Areas
CMRG personnel are currently involved in research areas include thermal modeling, experimental
characterization, process optimization, and natural materials processing. Under the direction of faculty advisors,
graduate and undergraduate students participate in hands-on composite research. Recent projects include
photoinitiated resin curing for filament winding and pultrusion, computer modeling and experimental
evaluation of pressure, temperature, and degree of cure within a pultrusion die, optimization of
pultrusion die geometry, evaluation and optimization of fiber/resin wet-out techniques, evaluation of
environmental effects (temperature, humidity) on pultruded composites, testing and evaluation of
structural composites, examination of fatigue properties of pultruded composites, process development for
new resins, and pultrusion development for natural fiber reinforcements. Faculty personnel currently involved
in pultrusion research projects can be contacted using the links below.
Dr. James G. Vaughan - process characterization, environmental effects
Dr. Ellen Lackey, CCT-I - process characterization, natural fiber reinforcement
Dr. Jeff Roux - process modeling
Dr. John O'Haver - surface science
Undergraduate and Graduate Students
Numerous graduate and undergraduate students are involved in the research conducted by the CMRG.
Email addresses of some of these students are provided below.