Micromechanics Analysis of Composites via Carrera Unified Formulation and NASA Multiscale Analysis Tool

This paper presents numerical analyses concerning the micromechanics of composite structures. The results stem from the synergistic use of the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) and NASA Multiscale Analysis Tool (NASMAT). CUF provides the structural theories to model the representative volume elements (RVE) via 1D finite elements with improved kinematics. NASMAT is the new state of the art multiscale framework developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center for high-performance computing systems. The numerical assessments focus on various RVE architecture with increasing complexity and including wovens. The accuracy and numerical efficiency are discussed for homogenization and localization of the entire 3D stress field. As multifold improvements in the computational time are obtained, extensions to nonlinear multiscale analyses are plausible and attractive.