A polymorphic element formulation towards multiscale modelling of composite structures

Abstract

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Highlights  New polymorphic Floating Node Method for multiscale analysis  Element-level management of coupling between scales  Location and extent of high-fidelity scale able to evolve during analysis  Implementation of VCCT and CZM within polymorphic elements for multi-scale failure analysis of composite structures Highlights (for review)

A crack-tip element for modelling arbitrary crack propagations

“…More applications of the FNM are referred but not limited to Refs. [35,36,40]. The FNM is employed for the strong discontinuity in the present study for modelling crack propagation.…”

“…Complex crack networks with multiple cracks in an element can be represented directly by forming sub-elements that are conforming to the cracks. So far, applications of FNM on fracture problems have been reported in numerous publications, ranging from single-crack to manycrack problems on isotropic and composite materials [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45].…”

A novel formulation for the explicit discretisation of evolving boundaries with application to topology optimisation

“…With discontinuity FNM has proven to be a very powerful tool to model fracture [6,7,33,34] and to realise polymorphic elements [35]. One can think of a crack as an example of an evolving boundary.…”

“…Alternatively, for the case in which the boundary is explicitly discretized in the numerical model, the nodal sensitivity vector at the boundary is given by v n (j) = T (j)σ(j) −λ . (35)…”

A floating connector element formulation for multi-level modelling of composite structures

“…Within the multi-level framework, there are various iterative [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and concurrent [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] methods in the literature to include a structural detail into a larger model. In iterative (sub-modelling) approaches, a global and a local model are simulated separately within an iterative procedure.…”