Register to access content
Please complete the form below to access content. All required fields are indicated with an *
Integrative simulation workflows for efficient material and component engineering of polymers
The knowledge of these process-induced micromechanical characteristics, which are provided by injection moulding simulations and are transferred by a mapping process to structural Finite Element (FE) analysis, is essential for high quality FE simulations.
Beyond the application of the required simulation software tools in each phase of the integrative approach, the calibration and validation of suitable material models is a challenge. Experimental testing campaigns can be highly time-consuming. The sample preparation by itself requires the material to be delivered, the plates to be injection moulded and the milling of the samples. In addition, CT scans need to be performed to characterise the material microstructure. The overall duration of the testing campaign also depends on the thermal or mechanical measurements to be conducted. For instance, the characterisation of the creep behaviour of a reinforced thermoplastic requires tests to be performed at different stress levels, for various specimens orientations, and at different temperatures. The testing campaign can easily extend over three months for the creep characterisation of a single material.
The uncertainties related to the material properties (e.g. stiffness & failure) & process simulation data (e.g fibre orientation) provide an additional challenge in the multiscale simulation to validate the robustness of a given design.
In the first part of the webinar, an integrative simulation workflow for virtual testing will be demonstrated. It includes the entire process from the virtual manufacturing process simulation, through the micromechanical material model, to the structural simulation at the component level. The approach allows a significant reduction of the time effort to a few days only to generate material data. The workflow is applied for a quasi-static loading and long-term creep loading at both specimen and component levels. The simulation results are compared against experimental measurements.
In the second part of the webinar, a new automated workflow considering the uncertainties related to the fibre orientation prediction will be presented. This method aims to perform UQ (Uncertainty Quantification) based design, also known as Robust Design using Digimat & Odyssee.