Simulation of Small-Scale Damage Evolution During Processing of Polymer Matrix Materials Systems

ABSTRACT: This proposal presents two novel approaches for the modeling of interface and interphase phenomena in composite material systems. From the computational perspective new developments include integration of Discontinuous Galerkin ideas with the variational multiscale finite element methods for a precise description of the fiber-matrix interface. The second approach is developed for a mixture theory that is governed by a homogenized set of equations. A two-level split of the deformation map into an elastic component and a phase/damage evolution component leads to two-level description with embedded interphases and damage evolution, leading to fatigue and failure. These methods possess enhanced stability properties as compared to the standard Galerkin methods, and a built-in error estimation module that helps distinguish modeling errors from numerical errors, a feature that is not present in any of the competing numerical method currently available. Another significant feature of our methods is the notion of maximization of entropy production that yields the driving criterion for damage evolution. A third significant feature is that both methods accommodate p-refinement feature that leads to higher than quadratic convergence in the L2 norm with quadratic or higher interpolation functions. BENEFIT: test