FEM Analysis of Composites and Laminates?

Thread by Pete Young on 18 Feb 2010 at 17:02:45 
Hello,

I am a mechanical engineer in charge to assess a new equipment made from plastic based materials.
In order to select the appropriate materials and analyze the expected service life of the structure, we are orienting ourselves on existing FEM software, like Abaqus / Catia, Ansys, Nastran or SolidWorks Premium. According to the brochures, these programs not only utilize static, but also dynamic loads on composite structures, such as impact, torsional, flexural loads, and subsequent damage and failure analyis.

Now, my questions are:

- What FEM simulation program should I use?
- Is the CheFEM (Chemical driven FEM Simulation) add-in, the lastest flavour of the month or does it really add something to the analysis of materials? Putting it differently: is the influence of chemical interactions (diffusion, permeation, swelling, corrosion) on the service life of composite structures really substantial?

Kind Regards,
Pete Young

    Comment by Kate Stuart on 26 Feb 2010 at 17:09:22  | |responses: 2|
    You might decide on your budget and then pick one of these in descending order of preference:

    1. Catia / Abaqus package
    2. Abaqus Computer Aided Engineering
    3. Patran / Nastran
    4. Femap / Nastran
    5. Ansys Workbencj
    6. Nisa, Algor, Cosmos, etc.

    Rgearding CheFEM:

    CheFEM adds - like it says - CHEmical interactions to FEM based engineering analysis. Specifically when dealing with chemicals and/or high temperature and pressure conditions CheFEM is very useful. Why? One of the most important reasons is that the multiphysics packages listed above are not good in the solubility / diffusion / interfacial thermodynamics that come into play if chemicals are involved. Probably this is also reason why they didn't call themselves chemical-physical software packages ;-)

    Hope this helps,
    Kate Stuart

      Comment by Darji Hardik R on 23 Oct 2011 at 17:36:43  | |responses: 1|
      hiii

      i am student and in my project i want to do FEA analysis of composite GRP pipe which have sandwich composition,

      how can i do it in ANSYS ???

      how to make composite material ???

      how to make helical winding angles ???

      and how to give laminate layers so i can check hoop, Axial stress, strain and elasic moduli of GRP pipe ???

        Comment by Composite Analytica on 27 Jan 2012 at 22:46:01  | |responses: 0|
        Take a look at you tube, use search terms like
        comosite ansys tutorial, etc.

        Good luck.