Consistent Finite Element mesh generation for meso-scale modeling of textile composites with preformed and compacted reinforcements

Experimental characterization and numerical modeling of damage at the mesoscopic scale of woven polymer matrix composites under quasi-static tensile loading

“…A consistent mesh of the RUC (Fig. 5) is obtained using the procedure developed by Grail et al [14]. This procedure ensures conformal meshes at the contact zones between the yarns and between yarns and matrix.…”

“…If the layer is thick, a lower yarn volume fraction is obtained in the RUC, and if it is thin, very small elements are required to ensure a good mesh quality. Therefore, the method of Grail et al [14], which allows the generation of consistent meshes of 2D textile composite RUC with yarns in contact, will be used in this work. This method seems to be appropriate to model meso-scale damage in textile composites [20].…”

“…Indeed, the yarn surfaces are not correctly represented by the element faces. The generation of consistent FE meshes with element faces that follow accurately the yarn surfaces is complex [14], especially in zones where yarns are in contact. Therefore, many authors insert a matrix layer between the yarns [8,18,23,24], which considerably simplifies the meshing procedure since each yarn can be meshed separately.…”

Damage accumulation in textile composites

“…For example, for woven laminates studied in Daggumati et al (2010), transverse cracks are observed to start at the edges of the weft yarns when loaded in the warp direction. Typically, the meso-FE models use a simplified geometrical representation of the reinforcement (Lomov et al, 2007b;Grail et al, 2013). Optical measurements of the strain on the surface of a textile composite specimen (Lee et al, 2004;Lomov et al, 2008b;Daggumati et al, 2011) also show different possibilities for localization of transverse strains over a yarn.…”

Multiscale finite element analysis of mode I delamination growth in a fabric composite

“…Also, Zhang et al [15] predicted the damage and failure mechanisms of a 0°/±60°braided composite using a meso-scale FE analysis including a representative unit cell model. Grail et al [16] presented a new method to generate smooth FE meshes for the meso-scale representation of textile composites unit cells with compacted reinforcements. In this method, the real yarn shape after compaction and the contact interactions between the yarns are considered.…”