Finite Element Analysis for Textile Composites Using Fiber-Bundles/Matrix-Resin Separated Mesh

Abstract

This paper proposes a finite element modeling method for textile composite, in which fiber bundle and matrix resin are separately meshed, and they are connected by using discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method. The fiber bundle geometry is often complex in the textile composite. In the conventional FEM, it causes small, distorted resin elements surrounded by the fiber bundles, because the resin must be meshed along the fiber bundle geometry. These distorted elements result in the increased effort to meshing, computing cost, and degraded accuracy. In the proposed method, we apply the DG method to the 3-dimensional analysis of the textile composite. DG method is a method which can connect two separately divided meshes in the FEM. The method proposed in this paper has a distinct advantage, because matrix resin has not to be meshed along the fiber bundle geometry. Moreover, regular cubic grid mesh can be used for matrix resin. In the present paper, the formulation of the DG method is presented first. The method and results of the microscopic stress analysis for textile composite is then described. The results agree well with those of conventional FEM, and validity of the proposed method is demonstrated.