Composites modeling with ANSYS

Modeling Layered Composites the Simple Way

1 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Motivation
Composites offer tremendous weight savings, increased performance, and design flexibility The composites market is a relatively young, fast growing and technologically evolving market
2 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Challenges
Multiple materials, complex layups, large number of plies etc. makes the job difficult to design parts with these materials Compared to homogenous materials like steel or plastic, composites are much more challenging to analyze

2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

The intuitive implementation of composite design development in ANSYS Composite PrepPost brought out a revolution in composite simulations. We are able to realize a continuous design process from simulation results to manufacturing including design modifications within the development.
Hendrik Mester, Rotor Blade Development, REpower Systems AG
4 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Shell based composites

2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Analyzing Composites in R14.0

Motivation

ANSYS Workbench provides superior CAD connectivity, meshing and a easy framework to perform design optimization With R14.0, we greatly improve the workflow for analysis of composite components

2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Engineering Data Enhancements

New in R14

New at Release 14.0

Orthotropic stress/strain strength properties Tsai-Wu, Puck, LaRc03/04 Constants Properties available to ACP and Mechanical and MAPDL

2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Manually Defining Layers on Simple Geometries

Users can define simple layered sections for a shell body as well as define thicknesses and angles as parameters

2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Basic Layer Definition in Mechanical

New in R14

Layered Section Object

Allows a user to define simple layered section for a shell body Inserted under the Geometry folder from the toolbar or its RMB insert menu
9 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Layered Section Object

Details
Scope to bodies or faces

Options to define offset and sequencing

Graphics option to display specific layer to help verify correct offset, sequence, etc.

Worksheet View to enter layer data

Thickness, angle values can be parameterized

10 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Layered Section Object Example

Graphics : Section Thickness , Location

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Postprocessing
Layer Control, Membrane/Bending Output

New MembraneBending stress results.

Ability to choose which layer to view results

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Explicit Composite Example

New in R14
CFRP Baseball bat with spiral CRFP reinforcement

Normal Stress in 3rd Ply, 45o to Bat Axis

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Defining Layers on Complex Geometries

Courtesy of TU Chemnitz and GHOST Bikes GmbH

For complex geometries, the ANSYS Composite PrepPost tool is used and layer definitions are imported in the assembly model in ANSYS Mechanical.

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Data Integrated ACP with WB

New in R14

ACP introduced as a component system inside WB Like a typical WB system, file management and standard actions like Update, Duplicate Consume materials from Engineering Data
15 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

ACP-Mechanical Linkage
New in R14

ACP Pre system contains EDA, Geometry, Model and Setup (same as Mechanical system) Setup cell launches ACP Editor Mesh (shell) is transferred from Mechanical into ACP ACP then passes, discrete section data to Mechanical as Imported Layered Section object
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ACP-Mechanical: Example Schematic

New in R14
Explicit (Autodyn) Implicit (MAPDL)

Parameter Support Include as part of Design Exploration

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Material Definition

You can define additional composite layers using the concept of fabrics, stackups and sublaminates

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Manual definition
Complex Curved Structures

A system of rosette combination can be used to Define material reference directions

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Draping
Structures with high curvatures etc. produceability is a big factor in design ACP can predict draping, fiber angle correction etc. For Manufacturability, we can also interact with FiberSim (Vistagy)
20 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Validation
Verify model setup by viewing the stacking sequences or by generating a Ply-book
Cross-section views

Ply-Book generation
21 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Asymmetric Laminates

ACP allows multiorientations of the same region to support asymmetric laminate definition
22 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

Post-Processing
State of the art post-processing

Identify critical parts by highlighting failure mode, failed layer and critical load case in one plot

tw(31) (0)

tw(31) (0)
tw(31) (0) tw(31) (0)

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Miscellaneous Enhancements
New in R14

VCCT In R14, ACP you can define a modeling-ply as a VCCT layer. When the solid-model is generated a VCCT layer is introduced between the corresponding plies.

Performance
In R14, ACP now groups elements with similar or identical section-definition (based on limit-angle and thickness). For most models this results in a drastic reduction of section-data which helps improve solver performance
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Solid composites models

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Solid Extrusion
Use CAD data to create cut-off rules CAD data can be used to extrude plies from surface to SOLID mesh to model complex 3D shapes

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Auto Detect Butt-Joined Ply Boundaries

New in R14

In R13 ACP creates dropoff elements on all ply boundaries

Three adjacent plies with intermediate drop-off elements (R13)

Three adjacent plies with smooth transition zone (R14)

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With R14 ACP will now automatically collect nonoverlapping plies and extrude them in one group in order to create smooth transition zones in between of them.

Multi-Component Mesh extrusion

New in R14

In R14 ACP will detect free shared edges and automatically eliminate internal free edge ends to enable a fully automatic solid extrusion of a more general class of shell meshes.

Two-component tube assembly with two free shared edges

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Three virtual components (R14)

Solid extrusion in ACP 14

(illustration without butt-joined plies)

Appendix

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Explicit Solver Details Steps in ACP-Mechanical Workflow

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

Layered Sections: Explicit Solver

Layered Shells (4 node/3 node shell)

Orthotropic elasticity per layer or Isotropic elasticity + plasticity per layer

Can have zero thickness ply's to represent ply drop offs Ply by Ply failure/progressive damage (based on Principal stress, strain or Tsai-Wu) Post-processing as per MAPDL plus display of failed layers for cases with progressive damage(via user defined results)
31 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 22, 2011

ACP-Mechanical Linkage- Mechanical Mesh

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Create ACP Pre System Specify Geometry Source Edit Model Cell to open Mechanical Create desired Named Selections for ACP Mesh the Model

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

ACP-Mechanical Linkage- Mechanical Transfer to ACP

1) Update the Model cell (to generate ACP Input file) 2) Edit Setup Cell to open ACP

Materials Transferred Named Selections Transferred

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

ACP-Mechanical Linkage-Imported Section

Data back into Mechanical
1) Work in ACP to define the composite layups 2) Update ACP to generate imported Section Data for Mechanical 3) Mechanical will then contain the Element by element section data 4) Graphics, full structural Solver, and basic Post Support inside Mechanical

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

ACP-Mechanical Linkage- ACP Post

1) Create ACP Post System 2) Link from Structural Solution Cell into Post Results Cell to transfer result file into ACP Post

Support for RMB Transfer Data actions to help user learn possible connections

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011

ACP-MAPDL Linkage
Shell Mesh sent to ACP. ACP extrudes into solids via CDB which can then be linked to MAPDL Component system. ACP Post can be used to post-process the solid composites

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2011 ANSYS, Inc.

November 22, 2011