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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...


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


Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Fracture in Aluminium

"To assess the problem of containment after a blade-off accident in an aero-engine by numerical simulation the FAA has instigated a research effort concerning failure prediction in a number of relevant materials. Aluminium kicked off the program which involved an intensive testing program providing failure data under different states of stress, different strain rates and different temperatures. In particular split Hopkinson bars were used to perform dynamic punch tests on plates of different thicknesses allowing to investigate the transition between different failure modes such as petaling and plugging. Ballistic impact tests were performed at NASA GRC for the purpose of validation. This paper focuses on the numerical simulation effort and a comparison with experimental data is done. The simulations were performed with LS-DYNA and a tabulated version of the Johnson-Cook material law was developed in order to increase the generality, flexibility and user-friendliness of the material model."

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Mechanical Metals Yielding/Failure Analysis Aerospace and Defense High Speed Testing LS-DYNA Research Papers Validation


A semi-analytical model for polymers subjected to high strain rates

"Reliable prediction of the behaviour of structures made from polymers is a topic under considerable investigation in engineering practice. Especially, if the structure is subjected to dynamic loading, constitutive models considering the mechanical behaviour properly are still not available in commercial finite element codes. First, we give an overview of material laws for thermoplastics and show how the behaviour can be characterized and approximated by using visco-elasticity and metal plasticity, respectively. Experimental work is presented to point out important phenomena like necking, strain rate dependency, unloading behaviour and damage. A constitutive model including the experimental findings is derived. In particular, different yield surfaces in compression and tension and strain rate dependent failure, the latter with damage induced erosion, need to be taken into account. With the present formulation, standard verification tests can be simulated successfully. Also, an elastic damage model is used to approximate the unloading behaviour of thermoplastics adequately."

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


From Manufacturing to Design Validation

[We] introduced the topic of injection molding process simulation and the influence of the manufacturing process on structural analysis. The strength and stiffness of a part can be inaccurately represented if the manufacturing process conditions are not properly considered. This results in a different calculation of system natural frequencies or improper estimation of the energy absorbing characteristics. We continue on this topic, extending the scope to advanced technologies available in the Altair Partner Alliance (APA) to help solve the problem of proper design validation with fiber reinforced plastics.

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Mechanical Aerospace and Defense Automotive Injection Molding Structural Analysis Moldex3D DIGIMAT Papers Altair RADIOSS Newsletters Validation


'Lego Man' - Accurate FEA of Engineering Plastics

This demonstration showing how to analyze plastic parts using finite element analysis was given by Patrick Cunningham at CAE Associates' Accurate FEA of Engineering Plastics seminar, held on October 14, 2014 in Tarrytown, NY.

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Plastics Plasticity Presentations


Handbook of Plastics Analysis: Book Review

Assurance of quality in raw materials, control over production, and a basic understanding of criteria for performance all require a sure and complete knowledge of analytical methods for plastics. The present volume organizes the vast world of plastics analysis into a relatively compact form. A plastics engineer will find familiar territory in such subjects as rheometry, differential scanning calorimetry, and measurement of thermal properties. Polymer physicists and chemists will be at home with spectroscopic analyses, liquid chromatography, and nuclear magnetic resonance. All these topics and many more are covered in twelve chapters written by an impressive array of experts drawn from industry and academia.

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Rheology Thermal Plastics Structural Analysis Book Review


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


Characterization of Damage in Hyperelastic Materials Using Standard Test Methods and Abaqus

Over the past couple of decades, standard test methods and material models have existed for rubber-like materials. These materials were classified under the category of Hyperelastic materials. Well established physical test methods and computational procedures exist for the characterization of the material behavior in tension, compression, shear volumetric response, tear strength etc. However, effective modeling of the fracture behavior of hyperelastic materials using finite element techniques is very challenging. In this paper, we make an attempt to demonstrate the use of such standard test methods and the applicability of such test data for performing finite element analyses of complex nonlinear problems using Abaqus. Our goal is to demonstrate the effective use of standard physical test data to model multi-axial loading situations and fracture of hyperelastic materials through tear tests and indentation test simulations.

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Rubbers Material Supplier Industrial Goods Nonlinear Material Models Structural Analysis Abaqus Research Papers


Creep modelling of Polyolefins using artificial neural networks

Notwithstanding the increasing demand for polymeric materials in an extraordinary variety of applications, the engineers have often only limited tools suitable for the design of parts made of polymers, both in terms of mathematical models and reliable material data, which together constitute the basis for a finite-elements based design. Within this context, creep modelling constitutes a clear example of the needs for a more refined approach. An accurate prediction of the creep behaviour of polymers would definitely lead to a more refined design and thus to a better performance of the polymeric components. However, a limited number of models is available within the f.e. codes, and when the model complexity increases, it becomes sometimes difficult fitting the models parameters to the experimental data. In order to predict the polymer creep behaviour, this paper proposes a solution based on artificial neural networks, where the experimental creep curves are used to determine the parameters of a neural network which is then simply implemented in an Abaqus user subroutine. This allows to avoid the implementation of a complex material law and also the difficulties related to match the experimental data to the model parameters, keeping easily into account the dependence on stress and temperature. After a discussion of the selection of the appropriate network and its parameters, an example of the application of this approach to polyolefins in a simplified test case is presented.

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Mechanical Plastics Automotive Biomedical Structural Analysis Abaqus Research Papers Validation


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