Modeling of Fiber Reinforced Structures in

HyperMesh
Dr.-Ing. U. Weerts, Dr.-Ing. R. Kickert

, Lilienthalplatz 5, 38126 Braunschweig, Germany

Fiber reinforced polymers are today increasingly used in all types of components. A time efficient
simulation process with a tight quality assurance is needed, especially with large numbers of parameters
being involved for describing material and failure characteristics. A modular concept for the design of
fiber reinforced structures is presented. As most of the “state of the art” ply failure criteria are not
supported by commercial finite element programs, pre- and post-processing tools must be modified in a
easy to use way by user-programmable features.

Libraries of material data including all essential strength properties and ply specific data are combined in
a spreadsheet program to laminate properties. These are transferred to HyperMesh via the HMASCII
interface using collectors including material data and ply specific data by card images. With the provided
geometry the structured meshing capabilities of HyperMesh are used, to build up the finite element
model. The analysis and post-processing is done with the commercial FE-program ANSYS. The
necessary ply failure criteria considering static and fatigue behavior are implemented by user-
programmable features, to support an efficient in time reporting.

Slide 1
 Company Review

Inhouse-code development

Circular antenna (DLR) Blade root – hub connection

(REpower)

Motorsailplane eta η Train nose section (Voith)

Slide 2
 Introduction

• FE-Modeling of FRP-structures is time-consuming caused

by numerous parameters
– material and strength properties (fiber failure,
intralaminar failure) for all used fabrics
– many regions with different laminat lay-up
– material, orientation and thickness of each layer
• Most “state of the art” failure criteria are not supported by
commercial FE-programs
• Many not supported layer- or ply-based results-
representations in commercial FE-programs

Slide 3
 Static Failure Criteria for FRP
UD-failure criteria
• Fiber- and intralaminar- (Puck)
failure
– UD-plies: Puck(1),
Hoffman, Tsai-Wu, ...
– Biaxial Fabrics:
a) Devide into two UD-
plies using Puck, ...
b) fabric-failure-criteria,
intralaminar shear load
is separated

• Core-failure: criteria based on transverse shear loads

• Interlaminar failure: fracture mechanical criteria

Slide 4
 Fatigue Failure Criteria for FRP
• Fiber-, intralaminar- and core-failure:
– principal of the critical section plane
(non-proportional loading)
– Calculation of range-mean-loading
by the utilization degrees of the used
failure criteria
– damage accumulation with Wöhler-
rule and mean-stress-effect intralaminar section plane
(e.g. Goodman-relationship ) (2)

• Interlaminar-failure:
– the crack plane is the interface plane
– energy based crack-propagation-analysis (e.g. Paris-
law)

Slide 5
 Modular Design Concept
Spreadsheet Material-library
Data of fabrics
Ply-data
Laminat lay-up
Region-Collectors
Geometry, Loads, BC
Preprocessing
Solver
Failure criteria of FRP
Postprocessing

Slide 6
 Material Properties and Ply-data
• Spreadsheet based library of elasticity- and strength-
properties for static and fatigue-loads
• Properties depend nonlinear on the fiber-volume-fraction
Material properties

Nr. Description θF ρL E1 E2 ν 12 G12 α1 α2 R1(+) R1(−) R2(+)

/( ) /(kg/m³) /(GPa) /(GPa) /( ) /(GPa) /(10-6) /(10-6) /(MPa) /(MPa) /(MPa)

1 2AX090-Fabrics-E-Glas 0.45 1780 20.000 20.000 0.100 3.000 4.000 4.000 280.00 280.00 280.00
2 Foam-C70.55 --- 60 0.045 0.045 0.250 0.018 80.000 80.000 1.30 1.30 1.30
3
4

• Ply-data with material-reference and fiber-grammage

Ply-data

Nr. Description Mat.-Nr. qF tL

/( ) /(g/m²) /(mm)

1 2AX090-Fabrics CS-ITG 92110 1 163 0.14

2 2AX090-Fabrics CS-ITG 92125 1 280 0.24
3 Foam-C70.55 2 --- 1.00
4
5

Slide 7
 Laminat Lay-up
• The laminat lay-up is combined in Region-Collectors
• Each Region-Collector is assigned to an element-type
• Each layer is defined by the quantity of the plies, the sort-
number and their orientations
Ply-data Elementtype

Nr. Description qF tL Nr. Name K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K9 K10 K11 Remark

/(g/m²) /(mm)

1 2AX090-Fabrics CS-ITG 92110 163 0.14 1 SHELL91 16 0 0 Nodes at middle surface

2 2AX090-Fabrics CS-ITG 92125 280 0.24 2 SHELL91 16 0 1 Nodes at bottom surface
3 Foam-C70.55 --- 1.00 3 SHELL91 16 0 2 Nodes at top surface

Laminate lay-up

Layernumber
ANSYS HMASCII
BOTTOM
Nr. Region Collector nL tL ITYPE LSYM ADMS L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6
/( ) /(mm) /( ) /( ) /(kg/m²) Qty Ply Ori Qty Ply Ori Qty Ply Ori Qty Ply Ori Qty Ply Ori Qty Ply Ori
/( ) /( ) /(°) /( ) /( ) /(°) /( ) /( ) /(°) /( ) /( ) /(°) /( ) /( ) /(°) /( ) /( ) /(°)
2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 0 0 0
1 Example Region 1 5 3.77 3 1 1 0 1 2 45 3 3 0 1 2 45 1 1 0
2 Example Region 2 5 3.28 3 1 1 0 3 3 0 1 1 0
3
4

Slide 8
 HyperMesh-Interface(3)
• The collected spreadsheet-data
are transferred via a HmAscii-File
HYPERMESH Input Deck Generated by leichtwerk : 2.0
Generated using leichtwerk-HmAscii Template Version : 2.0
*filetype(ASCII)
*version(8.0)

BEGIN DATA

• Material data including strength BEGIN MATERIALS

*material(1,"2AX090-Fabrics-E-Glas",7)

properties are assigned to *attributesforentity(MATERIALS,1,67)

*attributeint(1,500,0,0,8)
...

Material-Collectors END MATERIALS

• The laminat lay-up is saved in
Property-Collectors
BEGIN PROPERTIES
*property(1,"Example Region 1",0,7)
*attributesforentity(PROPERTIES,1,10)
*attributeint(0,3032,0,0,8)
...
END PROPERTIES

BEGIN COMPONENTS

• Component-Collectors are *component(1,"Example Region 1",1,5)

*attributesforentity(COMPS,1,3)
*attributeint(0,3080,0,0,8)

defined with property- and ...

END COMPONENTS

element-type-reference BEGIN SENSORS

*sensor(1,"SHELL91_MID")
*attributesforentity(SENSORS,1,14)
*attributeint(0,1202,0,0,8)

• The element-type definitions are *attributeint(91,141,0,0,8)

...
END SENSORS

saved in Sensor-Collectors END DATA

Slide 9
 Preprocessing (HyperMesh)
• Geometry is imported by
IGES-interface FE-Model of a train nose section (Voith)
• Geometry is organized by
the predefined region-
collectors
• FRP-parts are meshed with
second-order-elements
• The structured meshing
capabilities of HyperMesh
are used
• Bondings are realized with
second-order-solids

Slide 10
 Solver and UPF
• The analyses are performed
with ANSYS Pressure distribution of a train nose section (Voith)
• Therefore, the HyperMesh
ADPL-Interface is used
• Aerodynamic surface loads
are applied via an external
Nastran BDF-interface
• The layer based static-
and fatigue-failure-criteria
are included by User-
Programmable-Features
(UPF)

Slide 11
 Postprocessing
• following items are currently supported for static analysis:
Fiber-Failure-Index
– Intralaminar-failure-index
– Intralaminar-failure-mode
– Intralaminar-failure-angle
– Fiber-failure-index
– Layer stresses and
strains Intralaminar-Failure-Index Intralaminar-Failure-Mode

– Layer orientations
– Core-failure-index
– Core shear stresses

Slide 12
 Postprocessing
• following items are currently Range-mean-matrix of a
blade root section
supported for fatigue-analysis:
– Intralaminar-failure-index
– Fiber-failure-index
– Core-failure-index
• damage accumulation can be
performed for
– Range-mean-matrices with
serial consideration of multiple unit-loadcases
– Load-time-series with superposition of unit-loadcases
(principle of the critical section plane)

Slide 13
 Summary
• modular design to combine the potentials of the programs
– Spreadsheet based Spreadsheet Material-library

material libraries Data of fabrics

– Spreadsheet based Ply-data

Laminat lay-up
laminat-modeler
Region-Collectors
– Preprocessing with Geometry, Loads, BC
HyperMesh Preprocessing

– Solver ANSYS Solver

– Postprocessing with Failure criteria of FRP

customized ANSYS Postprocessing

• currently analyses of static- and fatigue-behavior of UD-

plies, several fabrics and cores are supported

Slide 14
 Further Activities and Outlook
• Implementation of failure analysis
of metals (FKM-guidlines(4))
• Solver independent failure
analysis, therefore
implementation of failure criteria
and layer based output in ▬ B-Basis
▬ Regression

HyperView
• Extension of the HyperMesh
ADPL-Interface by customized
Bonding-Interface-Elements(5)
(J-Integral, Crack-Propagation)
Crack-propagation-analysis of a bonded repair

Slide 15
 References

(1) A. Puck, Festigkeitsanalyse von Faser-Matrix-Laminaten, München, 1996

(2) Germanischer Lloyd, Richtlinie für die Zertifizierung von
Windenergieanlagen, Hamburg, 2003.
(3) HyperMesh User’s Manual, Version 8.0
(4) Forschungskuratorium Maschinenbau, Rechnerischer Festigkeitsnachweis
für Maschinenbauteile, Frankfurt a.M., 2003
(5) Ulf Weerts, Bruchmeschabische Charakterisierung von Klebungen, Ph.D.
thesis, Institut für Flugzeugbau und Leichtbau, TU-Braunschweig,
Braunschweig, 2004

Slide 16