Composite Structures

Composite materials are increasingly utilized by many industries due to their beneficial properties and the ability to tailor their response as needed. Certification of such structures requires component and sometimes full-vehicle testing, which is expensive and time-consuming and usually occurs too late in the design cycle to have any meaningful impact on the design itself. Until recently, analysis capabilities have not been sufficiently advanced to allow simulation to be used to influence design earlier in the development cycle.

SIMULIA products, such as our Abaqus Unified FEA product suite, Multiphysics, simulation automation and optimization capabilities, and SLM products, provide realistic simulation solutions to these and many other engineering challenges. Using the appropriate advanced simulation tools can improve the design, increase the value of testing, and significantly reduce the amount and scale of physical testing from that which is currently required. The Abaqus FEA product suite utilizes not only static, but also dynamic load case simulation such as impact, collision, BVID, and bird strike. SIMULIA provides a platform for evolving your composites simulation methodology to deliver more accurate results to meet regulatory and competitive demands.

Solution Capabilities

• State-of-the-art capabilities for composites fracture and failure including cohesion elements and VCCT
• Advanced material models including laminate damage (fiber, matrix, and combined failure modes in tension, compression, and shear)
• Modern element technology to simulate composites including traditional shells, continuum shells (with thickness effects), stacked continuum shells for highly accurate transverse shear calculations, and specially-formulated solid elements for bending
• State-of-the-art ply definition, management, and application during model generation plus through-thickness and ply-valued post-processing to speed decision making on composite modeling results
• Bi-directional associativity with CATIA PLM products through geometry interchange with CATIA as well as ply-level associativity with CPD
• Simulation process automation
• Design optimization