A mixed finite element formulation for energy‐momentum time integrations of composites with fiber bending stiffness

Abstract

We aim at dynamic simulations of 3D‐fiber‐reinforced materials in light‐weight structures, which are reinforced by fiber rovings comprised of thousands of filaments. Each roving possesses a separate bending stiffness, which has a large influence on the material behaviour on the macro scale. For the description of this material behavior, we extend a hyperelastic anisotropic Cauchy continuum formulation, which models only the macro‐scopic behaviour of a reinforcement by filaments, by a higher‐order gradient of the deformation mapping as an independent field. The new mixed finite element formulation is based on well‐known mixed finite elements for anisotropic polyconvex material formulations, but include new additional mixed fields concernd with the fiber bending stiffness. As we aim at dynamic long‐term simulations, we apply higher‐order accurate time integrators. Here, we include the new mixed finite element formulation in a variational‐based time finite element method. As numerical examples serve a simple cantilever beam. Here, we first analyze the influence of the fiber bending stiffness.