Adaptive Delamination Modelling with Isogeometric analysis REpresentation (ADMIRE)

Research Project, 2018 – 2019

Delamination is considered the most detrimental failure mechanism in laminated fibre-reinforced composites. The ability to accurately predict the onset and propagation of delamination is therefore essential for designing damage tolerant composite structures with complex geometry. Reliable computational tools that effectively reduce the development and processing time are therefore very attractive. Such tools can essentially assist the design and production of more robust and safe lightweight structures, enabling both weight reduction (achieved by replacing metals by laminated composites) and considerable economical savings in the development process. However, today, the damage tolerance analysis of larger laminated composite components is difficult due to the large computational efforts required. The main purpose of ADMIRE is therefore to explore further a very promising computational framework for efficient and predictive modelling of delamination growth based on so-called Isogeometric Analysis (IgA in short). Expected results from the project is an computationally efficient, yet accurate isogeometric modelling approach which can to allow for the modelling of arbitrarily many delaminations. The efficiency comes form that the concept is adaptive such that high model resolutions is only introduced in parts of the model where damage and delamination occur. In ADMIRE, the method will be validated against experimental results on curved shell geometries but also benchmarked against state-of-the-art modelling techniques in terms of accuracy and computational speed. The feasibility of the concept to be implemented in industrial design and analysis procedures will also be carefully assessed.