A composite material characterisation tool: UnitCells

Li, S.; Jeanmeure, L. F. C.; Pan, Q.

Abstract

Unit cells in conjunction with micromechanical finite-element analysis have been widely used as a means for material characterisation of modern composites. However, they have been mostly applied in an ad hoc manner based on individual cases. Their implementation is often a demanding task for most unit-cell users, even with the formulation given in typical publications. The typical challenges are outlined in this paper. A significant and systematic development has been carried out in recent years to automate their implementation. Eventually, a software program, UnitCells, was released as a secondary development on the Abaqus/CAE platform. It is a code written in Python which incorporates various unit cells in a rigorous and systematic way according to their formulations; at the same time, it automates the implementation of their modelling processes. The developed code has been thoroughly verified, and some of the validation cases are given in this paper as examples of its application.

Citation

Li, S., Jeanmeure, L. F. C., & Pan, Q. (2015). A composite material characterisation tool: UnitCells. Journal of Engineering Mathematics, 95, 279-293. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10665-014-9776-4

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 22, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Mar 13, 2015
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Deposit Date: Jul 11, 2018
• Print ISSN: 0022-0833
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-2703
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 95
• Pages: 279-293
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10665-014-9776-4
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1102583
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10665-014-9776-4
• Related Public URLs: http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84924565285&partnerID=40&md5=013153731c3d0eaeea64bdef28dc2f42