Abstract:

This paper presents some computational aspects of simulating effective orthotropic behavior of fabric reinforced composites through homogenization techniques.  A finite element solution scheme is presented for solving the related microscale boundary value problems that arise in the homogenization scheme.  The microscale is defined over a periodic unit cell in a plain-weave fabric reinforced composite.  The complex geometry of the fabric weave presents some nontrivial challenges for the finite element modeling effort.  In particular, appropriate boundary conditions for minimizing the computational effort are discussed by exploiting various symmetry and periodicity conditions of the unit cell.
 

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