Materials insight

Comparison of Crash Models for Ductile Plastics

There is interest in quantifying the accuracy of different material models being used in LS-DYNA today for the modeling of plastics. In our study, we characterize two ductile, yet different materials, ABS and polypropylene for rate dependent tensile properties and use the data to develop material parameters for the material models commonly used for plastics: MAT_024 and its variants, MAT_089 and MAT_187. We then perform a falling dart impact test which produces a complex multi-axial stress state and simulate this experiment using LS-DYNA. For each material model we are able to compare simulation to actual experiment thereby obtaining a measure of fidelity of the simulation to reality. In this way, we can assess the benefits of using a particular material model for plastics simulation.

Megan Lobdell, Brian Croop and Hubert Lobo: DatapointLabs, Ithaca, NY, USA

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DatapointLabs

DatapointLabs Technical Center for Materials is a US-based center of excellence for the measurement of physical properties of materials needed for product development, CAE, and R&D. With our testing services and software for materials, we help companies build enduring data collections that accurately represent the materials used in their products.

To date, more than 30,000 materials have flowed through the laboratory, providing data for over 1,200 companies around the world, including automotive, aerospace, appliance, biomedical, consumer products, electronics, and material supplier verticals. DatapointLabs offers TestPaks to provide CAE-ready material properties data for most major simulation software packages.

In 2018, DatapointLabs joined the Applus+ Group, a worldwide leader the testing, inspection and certification sector. In 2020, DatapointLabs celebrated 25 years of putting materials into product design.