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Knowmats is an informal repository of information related to materials and simulation. The information helps simulation professionals perform best-in-class simulation with a better understanding of how materials are represented in FEA and simulation. read more...


Datapoint Newsletter: Spring '08, Volume 14.1

New TestPaks. New Test Capabilities.

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Moldflow LS-DYNA Abaqus PAM-FORM Newsletters


Accuracy Issues in the Simulation of Quasi-Static Experiments for the Purpose of Mesh Regularization

Generating a LS-DYNA material model from cupon-level quasi-static experimental data, developing appropriate failure characteristics, and scaling these characteristics to mesh sizes appropriate for a variety of simulation models requires a regularization procedure. During an Investigation of an anisotropic material model for extruded aluminum, numerical accuracy issues led to unrealistic mesh regularization curves and non-physical simulation behavior. Sensitivity problems due to constitutive material behavior, small mesh sizes, single precision simulations, and simulated test velocity all contributed to these accuracy issues. Detailed analysis into the sources of innaccuracy led to the conclusion that in certain cases, double precision simulations are necesscary for accurate material characterization and mesh regularization.

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Mechanical Metals Yielding/Failure Analysis Aerospace and Defense Automotive Extrusion Nonlinear Material Models LS-DYNA Research Papers


Datapoint Newsletter: Spring '19, Vol. 25.2

Full metals testing capability added to DatapointLabs test catalog

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Mechanical Metals Automotive Structural Analysis Moldflow LS-DYNA DIGIMAT Composites Newsletters Validation Altair HyperWorks


Testing for Crash & Safety Simulation

The testing of materials for use in crash and safety simulations and the conversion of test data into material models is a process that is not well standardized in the industry. Consequently, CAE users face uncertainty and risk in this process that can have a negative impact on simulation quality. In this workshop, we present approaches currently used in the US for the gathering of high quality test data plus the acclaimed Matereality CAE Modeler software that is used to transform high strain-rate data into crash material cards.

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Automotive High Speed Testing Nonlinear Material Models Structural Analysis LS-DYNA Abaqus ANSYS DIGIMAT SIGMASOFT NX Nastran PAM-CRASH Altair RADIOSS Presentations


Simulating anisotropy with Ls-dyna in glass-reinforced, polypropylene-based components

Glass-fiber-reinforced polypropylene (GF PP) materials are increasingly being used by customers to replace metal and engineering polymers in structural automotive applications. Like all glass-fiber reinforced thermoplastics, GF PP products can show anisotropy caused by fiber orientation that is induced by the injection process. Taking into account fiber orientation in the simulations enables designers to improve the accuracy of the analyses. This can help prevent arbitrary choices and assumptions when setting material parameters, which become mandatory when an isotropic material law is used. The method proposed in this paper takes advantage of the availability within Ls-dyna of an anisotropic material law (MAT_103), which allows simplified modeling to address critical issues. This law was not developed to address the problem discussed here. Therefore, this paper illustrates a simplified approach. The presence of glass reinforced fibers is taken into account by running a mold-filling analysis, and then transferring the material flow orientation in to the structural simulation as a material angle. The dependence of the material failure strain on the material orientation can be also easily modeled through a user subroutine. Finally, the approach only requires simple material data based on basic tensile tests; the material law parameters are then identified through optimization techniques. Although this approach is based on some simplifying assumptions, its application is quick and can help the designer obtain more accurate results with respect to the traditional isotropic approach. A selection of validation tests is then proposed that show reliable predictions using limited additional computational effort.

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Mechanical Plastics Rate Dependency Automotive High Speed Testing LS-DYNA Research Papers


Providing an Experimental Basis in Support of FEA 

The use of CAE in design decision-making has created a need for proven simulation accuracy. The two areas where simulation touches the ground are with material data and experimental verification and validation (V&V). Precise, well designed and quantitative experiments are key to ensure that the simulation initiates with correct material behavior. Similar validation experiments are needed to verify simulation and manage the risk associated with this predictive technology.

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Plastics Rubbers Foams Metals Automotive Biomedical Building Materials Consumer Products Energy and Petroleum Material Supplier Toys/Sporting Goods Electonics/Electrical Industrial Goods CAE Vendor/Supplier Mold Maker/Designer Nonlinear Material Models Structural Analysis Abaqus Composites SIMULIA Presentations


Mold Tempering: Conformal Cooling - yes or no?

The tempering layout for injection molds is often designed departing from previous experiences. The manufacturing feasibility is the main driver when deciding where to place cooling lines. However, often the relevance of the tempering in the process profitability or in the part quality is underestimated, and due to the lack of better information sometimes the resulting tempering performs far from the optimum. As a consequence, the molding efficiency is reduced, the part quality is compromised and, once the mold is already built, sometimes expensive trial-and-error is required to bring the mold to an optimum configuration.

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Rheology Thermal Plastics Automotive Biomedical Injection Molding SIGMASOFT Newsletters


Datapoint Newsletter: Fall '10, Volume 16.4

Composite Testing on the Rise. Matereality 4.0 Release.

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Composites Newsletters


Development of Material Input Data for Solid Elements under Crash Loads

"Heavy trucks have large masses and only small deformation zones. Because of this, they are loaded relatively severe in case of a crash. Under those conditions structural response is characterised not only by plastic deformation but also by failure in terms of cracks or fracture. Hence, failure prediction is essential for designing such parts. The following article describes the procedure of generating material models for failure prognosis of solid parts in the Commercial Vehicles Division at Daimler. Sheet metal parts are mostly discretised by shell elements. In this case the state of stress is characterized by hydrostatic pressure over von-Mises effective stress, the so-called triaxiality. For many real-life load cases which can be modeled by thin shells this ratio is between –2/3 and –2/3. Within this range the Gurson material model with the Tvergaard Needlemann addition leads to sufficiently accurate results. Furthermore, the Gurson material model allows considering the effect of element size, which amongst others is important for ductile materials. Most often however, in the case of solid parts the state of stress is more complex, which results in a triaxiality smaller than –1 or larger than 2/3. Gurson material models are usually validated based on shell meshes and tensile tests with flat bar specimen. If applied to solid parts, these models tend to underpredict failure . Thus, for solid parts the GURSON_JC material model is used. The Johnson Cook parameters are derived from an existing Gurson material model. Afterwards the material model is adapted to test results by modifying the load curve giving failure strain against triaxiality. This requires tensile tests"

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Mechanical Metals Rate Dependency Yielding/Failure Analysis Automotive High Speed Testing LS-DYNA Research Papers Validation


Nonlinear viscoelastic modeling for foams

Lightweight design is one of the major principles in automotive engineering and has made polymer materials to inherent parts of modern cars. In addition to their lightweight thermoplastics, elastomers, fabric and composites also incur important functions in passive safety. In the age of virtual prototyping, assuring these functions requires the accurate modeling of the mechanical behavior of each component. Due to their molecular structure, polymer materials often show viscoelastic characteristics such as creep, relaxation and recovery. However, considering the general state of the art in crash simulation, the viscoelastic characteristics are mainly neglected or replaced by viscoplastic or hyperelastic and strain rate dependent material models. This is either due to the available material models that are often restricted to linear viscoelasticity and thus cannot model the experimental data or due to the time consuming parameter identification. In this study, a nonlinear viscoelastic material model for foams is developed and implemented as a user material subroutine in LS-DYNA. The material response consists of an equilibrium and a non-equilibrium part. The first one is modeled with a hyperelastic formulation based on the work of Chang [8] and formerly implemented as *MAT_FU_CHANG_FOAM in LS-DYNA (*MAT_083). The second one includes the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior following the multiple integral theory by Green and Rivlin [9]. The polyurethane foam Confor CF-45 used as part of the legform impactor in pedestrian safety was chosen for its highly nonlinear viscoelastic properties to test the presented approach. The investigation shows the ability of the method to reliably simulate some important nonlinear viscoelastic phenomena such as saturation.

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Mechanical Foams Viscoelastic Automotive Nonlinear Material Models LS-DYNA Research Papers