De-Shin Liu, Zhen-Wei Zhuang, Cho-Liang Chung

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.19, No.2, pp. 39-40, 2011, DOI:10.3970/icces.2011.019.039

Abstract A two-dimensional heterogeneous hybrid moisture element method (HHMEM) for modeling transient moisture diffusion in permeable fiber-reinforced polymer composites is proposed in this paper.
The HHMEM scheme is based on a heterogeneous hybrid moisture element (HHME), whose properties are determined by equivalent moisture capacitance and conductance matrixes calculated using the conventional finite element formulation with the similarity mass/stiffness property and matrix condensing operations. A coupled HHME-FE scheme is developed and implemented in computer codes MATLAB to analyze the transient moisture diffusion characteristics of polymeric composite materials containing multiple permeable fibers. The analysis commences by comparing the… More >

Luobin Wang, Feng Xu^*, Xiaofang Hu, Hongyan Qu, Hong Miao, Zhong Zhang

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.18, No.2, pp. 55-56, 2011, DOI:10.3970/icces.2011.018.055

Abstract Recent studies have indicated that mechanical performance of the short fiber-reinforced polymers composites not only depends on matrix type, fiber type, fiber weight fraction, fiber orientation, fiber dispersion etc. but fiber-matrix interface and matrix morphology are also of paramount importance. Many scholars have studied on effects of matrix and interface modification on the mechanical behavior of short carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composite. However, there is little work focused on the in situ observation of fracture process of fiber/epoxy composites. And it is difficult to know about crack and crack propagation in the sample without direct More >

L. J. Qin¹, X.F. Li¹, X.G. Yang², Z.W. Zhang², Z. H. Feng², H. Miao¹, Y. Wang¹, L.H. He¹, X.L. Gong^1,*

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.18, No.1, pp. 3-4, 2011, DOI:10.3970/icces.2011.018.003

Abstract Three-dimensional (3D) woven carbon/carbon (C/C) composites have attracted considerable attention in recent years. In comparison to the laminated composites, the carbon composites show better merit due to their strong through-the-thickness properties, high damage tolerance, and dimensional stability. However, the deformation of these materials is usually non-uniform. The strain field distribution is highly dependent on the heterogeneity of 3D woven structure. Therefore, the traditional techniques such as strain gauge are not suitable for measuring the deformation.

In this presentation, a full-field digital image correlation (DIC) technique was developed. The Iosipescu shear test (v-notched beam test) was… More >

Alamusi, Yaolu Liu, Ning Hu

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences, Vol.16, No.2, pp. 57-58, 2011, DOI:10.3970/icces.2011.016.057

Abstract In this work, we propose a 3 dimensional (3D) numerical model to predict the piezoresistivity behaviours of a nanocomposite material made from an insulating polymer filled by carbon nanotubes (CNTs). This material is very hopeful for its application in highly sensitive strain sensor by measuring its piezoresistivity, i.e., the ratio of resistance change versus applied strain. In this numerical approach, a 3D resistor network model is firstly proposed to predict the electrical conductivity of the nanocomposite with a large amount of randomly dispersed CNTs under the zero strain state. By focusing on the fact that… More >

De-Shin Liu¹, Zhen-Wei Zhuang¹, Shaw-Ruey Lyu^2,3, Cho-Liang Chung⁴, Pai-Chen Lin¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.26, No.2, pp. 111-136, 2011, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2011.026.111

Abstract This study proposes a two-dimensional heterogeneous hybrid moisture element method (HHMEM) for modeling transient moisture diffusion in permeable fiber-reinforced polymer composites.
The HHMEM scheme is based on a heterogeneous hybrid moisture element(HHME), with properties determined through an equivalent hybrid moisture capacitance/conductance matrix. This matrix was calculated using the conventional finite element formulation in space discretization as well as the θ-method in time discretization with similar mass/stiffness properties and matrix condensing operations. A coupled HHME-FE scheme was developed and implemented in computer code MATLAB in order to analyze the transient moisture diffusion characteristics of composite materials containing multiple… More >

C.B. Du^1,2, S.Y Jiang², W. Qin³, Y.M. Zhang²

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.81, No.3&4, pp. 229-248, 2011, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2011.081.229

Abstract A numerical analysis of concrete composites at the mesoscale based on three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction technology of X-ray computed tomography (CT) images is presented in this paper. For X-ray CT images of concrete, morphology processing was used to recover complete image information, including borders, and the median filtering method was applied to eliminate potential impurities in the images. The final X-ray CT images obtained after processing for a concrete section were composed of three-value pixels that indicated aggregate particles, mortar matrix and air voids, and the 3D structure of the concrete specimen was reconstructed using the More >

Lianhua Ma¹, Bernard F. Rolfe², Qingsheng Yang^1,3, Chunhui Yang^2,3

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.79, No.2, pp. 131-158, 2011, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2011.079.131

Abstract For fluid-filled closed cell composites widely distributed in nature, the configuration evolution and effective elastic properties are investigated using a micromechanical model and a multiscale homogenization theory, in which the effect of initial fluid pressure is considered. Based on the configuration evolution of the composite, we present a novel micromechanics model to examine the interactions between the initial fluid pressure and the macroscopic elasticity of the material. In this model, the initial fluid pressure of the closed cells and the corresponding configuration can be produced by applying an eigenstrain at the introduced fictitious stress-free configuration,… More >

Marco Dondero¹, Adrián P. Cisilino^1,2, J. Pablo Tomba¹

CMES-Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences, Vol.78, No.3&4, pp. 225-246, 2011, DOI:10.3970/cmes.2011.078.225

Abstract This paper introduces a numerical methodology for the design of random micro-heterogeneous materials with functionally graded effective thermal conductivities (ETC). The optimization is carried out using representative volume elements (RVEs), a parallel Genetic Algorithm (GA) as optimization method, and a Fast Multipole Boundary Element Method (FMBEM) for the evaluation of the cost function. The methodology is applied for the design of foam-like microstructures consisting of random distributions of circular insulated holes. The temperature field along a material sample is used as objective function, while the spatial distribution of the holes is the design variable. There More >

J. Sladek¹, V. Sladek¹, P. Stanak¹, Ch. Zhang², M. Wünsche²

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.23, No.1, pp. 35-68, 2011, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2011.023.035

Abstract A contour integral method is developed for the computation of stress intensity, electric and magnetic intensity factors for cracks in continuously nonhomogeneous magnetoelectroelastic solids under a transient dynamic load. It is shown that the asymptotic fields in the crack-tip vicinity in a continuously nonhomogeneos medium are the same as in a homogeneous one. A meshless method based on the local Petrov-Galerkin approach is applied for the computation of the physical fields occurring in the contour integral expressions of intensity factors. A unit step function is used as the test functions in the local weak-form. This More >

Le-Le Zhang¹, Xue-Qian Fang¹, Jin-Xi Liu¹, Ji-Hong Ma¹

CMC-Computers, Materials & Continua, Vol.21, No.3, pp. 171-186, 2011, DOI:10.3970/cmc.2011.021.171

Abstract On the basis of continuum surface elasticity, two interacting cylindrical nano-inhomogeneities with surface/interface effect in a small-sized solid under anti-plane shear waves are investigated, and the dynamic stress around the nano-inhomogeneities is analyzed. The wave function expansion method is used to expressed the wave field around the two nano-inhomogeneities. The total wave field is obtained by the addition theorem for cylindrical wave function. Through analysis, it is found that the distance between the two nano-inhomogeneities shows great effect on the dynamic stress in nano composites. The effect of the distance is also related to the More >