Material Designer User's Guide

ANSYS, Inc. Release 2020 R1

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Table of Contents
1. Getting Started ....................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Overview .......................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
1.1.2. Principle .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1.3. Supported Platforms ................................................................................................................ 2
1.1.4. Known Limitations ................................................................................................................... 2
1.1.5. First Steps ................................................................................................................................ 2
1.2. Graphical User Interface .................................................................................................................... 2
1.2.1. Ribbon Bar ............................................................................................................................... 3
1.2.2. Outline .................................................................................................................................... 4
1.2.3. Options Panel .......................................................................................................................... 4
1.2.4. Results Table ............................................................................................................................ 5
1.2.5. Material Designer Options ........................................................................................................ 8
1.2.6. Unit Systems ............................................................................................................................ 9
1.3. Workbench Workflow Examples ...................................................................................................... 10
1.3.1. Basic Workflow ....................................................................................................................... 10
1.3.2. Using Computed Materials in Downstream Analyses ............................................................... 11
1.3.3. Variable Material .................................................................................................................... 12
1.3.4. Parameter Fitting ................................................................................................................... 13
1.3.5. Workflow for Woven Composites ............................................................................................ 13
1.4.Tutorials .......................................................................................................................................... 14
1.4.1. UD Composite Tutorial ........................................................................................................... 14
1.4.2. Woven Composite Tutorial ...................................................................................................... 24
1.4.2.1. Initialize the Analysis ..................................................................................................... 24
1.4.2.2. Design the Woven Composite ........................................................................................ 26
1.4.2.3. Study the Effect of Shear ................................................................................................ 30
1.4.3. User Defined RVE Tutorial ....................................................................................................... 31
1.4.3.1. Initialization .................................................................................................................. 31
1.4.3.2. Define Input Materials ................................................................................................... 32
1.4.3.3. Prepare the User Defined RVE in Material Designer ......................................................... 33
1.4.3.4. Standard Steps in Material Designer ............................................................................... 36
2. Material Designer Features ................................................................................................................... 39
2.1. RVE Type ......................................................................................................................................... 39
2.1.1. Lattice .................................................................................................................................... 40
2.1.1.1. User Defined Lattices ..................................................................................................... 41
2.1.2. UD Composite ........................................................................................................................ 42
2.1.3. Random UD Composite .......................................................................................................... 43
2.1.4. Chopped Fiber Composite ...................................................................................................... 44
2.1.4.1. Orientation Tensor ......................................................................................................... 45
2.1.5. Woven Composite .................................................................................................................. 46
2.1.5.1. Fabric Fiber Angle .......................................................................................................... 47
2.1.5.1.1. Motivation ............................................................................................................ 47
2.1.5.1.2. Definition ............................................................................................................. 48
2.1.5.1.3. Consequences ...................................................................................................... 49
2.1.6. Particle .................................................................................................................................. 49
2.1.7. Random Particle ..................................................................................................................... 50
2.1.8. Honeycomb ........................................................................................................................... 51
2.1.9. User Defined RVE ................................................................................................................... 52
2.1.9.1. Hints for Importing Geometry for User Defined RVEs ...................................................... 56
2.2. Assign Materials .............................................................................................................................. 58

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Material Designer User's Guide

2.3. Mesh .............................................................................................................................................. 58

2.4. Analysis Settings ............................................................................................................................. 59
2.5. Solve .............................................................................................................................................. 61
2.5.1. Solve Variable Material ........................................................................................................... 61
2.5.2. Generated Material ................................................................................................................ 62
2.6. Display ........................................................................................................................................... 63
2.6.1. Display Element Orientation ................................................................................................... 63
2.7. Charts ............................................................................................................................................. 64
2.8. Data Management .......................................................................................................................... 65
2.8.1. Update .................................................................................................................................. 65
2.8.2. Clear Generated Data ............................................................................................................. 65
2.8.3. Export to CSV ......................................................................................................................... 66
2.8.4. Export to h5 ........................................................................................................................... 66
3. Theory Documentation ......................................................................................................................... 67
3.1. Homogenization in Material Designer ............................................................................................. 68
3.2. Modeling Assumptions ................................................................................................................... 68
3.2.1. Lattice Structures ................................................................................................................... 69
3.2.2. Unidirectional (UD) Composites .............................................................................................. 69
3.2.3. Random (Misaligned) UD Composites ..................................................................................... 69
3.2.4. Chopped Fiber Composites .................................................................................................... 69
3.2.5. Woven Composites ................................................................................................................. 69
3.2.6. Particle Reinforced Composites .............................................................................................. 70
3.2.7. Random Particle Reinforced Composites ................................................................................. 70
3.2.8. Honeycomb Structures .......................................................................................................... 70
3.2.9. User Defined RVE ................................................................................................................... 70
3.3. Computation of Material Properties ................................................................................................. 71
3.3.1. Orthotropic Linear-Elastic Material Properties ......................................................................... 71
3.3.1.1. Periodic Boundary Conditions ........................................................................................ 73
3.3.1.2. Non-Periodic Boundary Conditions ................................................................................ 73
3.3.2. Fully Anisotropic Linear-Elastic Material Properties .................................................................. 74
3.3.3. Orthotropic Secant Coefficients of Thermal Expansion ............................................................ 74
3.3.3.1. Periodic Boundary Conditions ........................................................................................ 75
3.3.3.2. Non-Periodic Boundary Conditions ................................................................................ 76
3.3.4. Orthotropic Thermal Conductivity .......................................................................................... 76
3.3.4.1. Periodic Boundary Conditions ........................................................................................ 77
3.3.4.2. Non-Periodic Boundary Conditions ................................................................................ 78
4. Best Practices ........................................................................................................................................ 79
4.1. Lattice structures ............................................................................................................................ 79
4.2. Woven composites .......................................................................................................................... 79
4.3. Chopped Composites ..................................................................................................................... 79
4.4. Misaligned UD Composites ............................................................................................................. 79
4.5. Random Particle Reinforced Composites ......................................................................................... 80
5. References ............................................................................................................................................. 81

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List of Figures
1.1. ANSYS Material Designer GUI .................................................................................................................. 3
1.2. Material Designer Ribbon Bar .................................................................................................................. 3
1.3. Material Designer Outline ....................................................................................................................... 4
1.4. Material Designer Options Panel ............................................................................................................. 5
1.5. Material Designer Options ...................................................................................................................... 8
1.6. Material Designer Component System .................................................................................................. 11
1.7. Material Designer Export to Engineering Data ....................................................................................... 11
1.8. Material Designer with Static Structural Analysis .................................................................................... 11
1.9. Material Designer with ACP ................................................................................................................... 12
1.10. Material Designer with Variable Material .............................................................................................. 12
1.11. Material Designer with ACP ................................................................................................................. 13
1.12. Parametric Design Workflow ............................................................................................................... 13
1.13. Woven Materials in Material Designer .................................................................................................. 14
2.1. RVE Type Toolbar .................................................................................................................................. 39
2.2. Change RVE Type .................................................................................................................................. 39
2.3. Lattice Geometry Options ..................................................................................................................... 40
2.4. UD Composite Geometry Options ......................................................................................................... 42
2.5. Random Unidirectional Composite Geometry Options ........................................................................... 43
2.6. Chopped Fiber Composite Geometry Options ....................................................................................... 44
2.7. Woven Composite Geometry Options ................................................................................................... 46
2.8. Particle Geometry Options .................................................................................................................... 49
2.9. Random Particle Geometry Options ...................................................................................................... 50
2.10. Honeycomb Geometry Options .......................................................................................................... 51
2.11. Expanded Honeycomb Geometry ....................................................................................................... 52
2.12. Extruded Honeycomb Geometry ........................................................................................................ 52
2.13. Assign Materials .................................................................................................................................. 58
2.14. Material Properties Dialog ................................................................................................................... 58
2.15. Create RVE Mesh ................................................................................................................................. 59
2.16. Analysis Settings ................................................................................................................................. 60
2.17. Display Element Orientation Options ................................................................................................... 63
3.1. Homogenization vs. Dehomogenization ................................................................................................ 67

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Chapter 1: Getting Started
The following sections provide information on Material Designer and how to get started.
1.1. Overview
1.2. Graphical User Interface
1.3. Workbench Workflow Examples
1.4.Tutorials

Click here for a quick video overview of the capabilities of Material Designer.

1.1. Overview
The following sections provide an overview of Material Designer.
1.1.1. Introduction
1.1.2. Principle
1.1.3. Supported Platforms
1.1.4. Known Limitations
1.1.5. First Steps

1.1.1. Introduction
Composite materials consist of two or more layered or otherwise integrated materials to create a new
material with different material properties. These materials combine the best properties of their
component materials, resulting in a product that is both light and strong.

Modeling composite materials in finite element analysis often involves performing experimental
testing to determine the exact material properties, which can be costly and time consuming. ANSYS
Material Designer allows you to create composite materials for simulation using base materials of
known material properties. By calculating material properties of new composite materials, Material
Designer provides a necessary tool in the design and manufacture of composite products.

Material Designer can also be used to generate homogenized materials for lattice structures. This allows
you to simulate the performance of parts consisting of lattice structures from additive manufacturing.
Parameterization within Material Designer allows for the optimization of lattice structures.

As a Beta Feature in Release 2020 R1, Material Designer can also be used to compute stress-strain
curves for composites and lattice structures with nonlinear constituent materials. For more information,
see the documentation here.

1.1.2. Principle
ANSYS Material Designer is a component system in ANSYS Workbench and is integrated into the
standard Workbench analysis workflow. The entire workflow for a composite structure from the design

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Getting Started

of composite materials to the final production plan can be performed in ANSYS Workbench using
Material Designer and ANSYS Composite PrepPost (ACP).

Material Designer provides the basis for the initial design of composite products. Composite materials
can be quickly modeled in Material Designer, as well as parameterized in order to seek the best possible
material properties.

Material Designer uses the ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler interface.

1.1.3. Supported Platforms

Materials Designer is supported for Windows systems. For information about specific operating system
versions, see the Platform Support section of the ANSYS Website.

1.1.4. Known Limitations

Material Designer has the following known limitations:

• Undo/redo functionality is not supported.

• Only one Material Designer cell can be connected to an Engineering Data cell. A temporary workaround
is to manually copy homogenized materials and import them directly into Engineering Data, if multiple
Material Designer materials are required.

• Periodic meshing is not supported for block structured meshes or non-conformal meshes.

• Material Designer does not respect the Suppress for Physics option.

• Variable fully anisotropic materials computed by Material Designer cannot be used in subsequent analyses.
As a workaround you would need to define them manually in Mechanical APDL.

• When duplicating a Material Designer system together with a downstream system, a duplicate output
material can be created in the Engineering Data cell of the new downstream system. As a workaround,
you should delete the output material in the Engineering Data cell before refreshing it, and then carefully
check the material assignments. The same applies when importing a Workbench project archive file con-
taining a Material Designer system together with a downstream system.

1.1.5. First Steps

The best way to get to know Material Designer is to follow one of the examples. You can find these
examples in Tutorials (p. 14).

Instructions on the use of specific features of Material Designer can be found in Material Designer
Features (p. 39).

Background information on the underlying theory behind Material Designer is available in Theory
Documentation (p. 67).

1.2. Graphical User Interface

The user interface is presented in the following parts:
1.2.1. Ribbon Bar

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 Graphical User Interface

1.2.2. Outline
1.2.3. Options Panel
1.2.4. Results Table
1.2.5. Material Designer Options
1.2.6. Unit Systems

Figure 1.1: ANSYS Material Designer GUI

1.2.1. Ribbon Bar

The Material Designer ribbon bar defines the basic workflow for creating and analyzing a material
model. A brief description of the tools follows. For more details, see Material Designer Features (p. 39).

Figure 1.2: Material Designer Ribbon Bar

The ribbon bar contains the following tools:

Select: Selection tool for interacting with the graphics window.

Change: Change the type of geometry of an in-progress composite material.

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Getting Started

Constituent Materials: Define the materials that make up your composite material.
Geometry: Define the geometry of your composite material.
Mesh: Define mesh settings for your composite material.
Analysis Settings: Define analysis settings for your composite material.
Solve Constant Material: Solve for material with a fixed set of material properties.
Solve Variable Material: Solve for material with parameterized material properties.
Update: Update the model based on new settings.
Clear Generated Data: Clear all the generated data.
Display Element Orientation: Display the orientation of the finite elements.
Open Help: Open this Material Designer documentation.
Exit: Exit Material Designer mode and show all SpaceClaim functionality.

1.2.2. Outline
The Material Designer outline shows the outline of input properties required to compute a homogen-
ized material. Items in the outline correspond to tools available on the Ribbon Bar (p. 3). The context
menu for each entry provides more detailed options.

Figure 1.3: Material Designer Outline

• Materials: Define the materials that make up your composite material.

• Geometry: Define the RVE geometry.

• Mesh: Define mesh settings for your composite material.

• Settings: Define analysis settings for your composite material.

1.2.3. Options Panel

The options panel changes depending on the selection in the Outline (p. 4), and allows you to input
required parameters for your composite material.

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 Graphical User Interface

Figure 1.4: Material Designer Options Panel

1.2.4. Results Table

View the computed material data in the results table (see examples that follow). Use the context
menu of each entry to copy values to the clipboard.

Note:

If more properties are computed (for instance the density), they are appended in the table.

Constant Results

RVE log: Click on the icon to see the log messages of the RVE update.

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Getting Started

Solver logs: Click on the icon to view the log viewer dialog:

Click the button of a load case to open the corresponding solver log output.

Click on the folder icon to open the corresponding folder.

Note:

In the constant case, you can parameterize the results in Workbench by checking the box
in the (last) P column.

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 Graphical User Interface

Raw Variable Results

Image: The raw variable results table shows a preview of each computed RVE variation. Click on it to
open the image in the standard image viewer.

Include: Select whether the corresponding results are included into the generated variable material.

RVE log: Click on the icon to see the log messages of the RVE update of the corresponding variation.

Solver logs: Click on the icon to view the solver logs of the corresponding variation.

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Getting Started

Results

Note:

• This table shows only the design points that are used to generate a variable material.

• In case of a randomized RVE, the table shows standard deviations in addition to the mean
values.

1.2.5. Material Designer Options

You can access Material Designer specific options by clicking File then clicking SpaceClaim Options.
In the dialog box that opens, select Material Designer.

Figure 1.5: Material Designer Options

• Solve in parallel: Use multiple processor cores to solve several load cases in parallel.

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 Graphical User Interface

• Maximum number of solver processes: Set the maximum number of parallel processes for the solver.
The default setting of -1 indicates no limit on the number of processes.

• Number of threads per solve process:

• Beta options: Activate this flag to use Beta features.

Using Material Designer to compute stress-strain curves for composites and lattice structures with
nonlinear constituent materials is a Beta feature in Release 2020 R1. For information about using
this feature, click here.

Note:

Parallelization of load cases is not supported when using license sharing.

1.2.6. Unit Systems

There are two unit systems that are interconnected and of importance for Material Designer: the
Material Designer analysis unit system and the SpaceClaim length units.

Material Designer Analysis Unit Systems

The Material Designer analysis unit system specifies the units in which Material Designer can perform
analyses:

• Macroscale units – s, m, kg

• Microscale units – s, mm, t

The stiffness results are subsequently either calculated in Pascal (Pa) or in Megapascal (MPa) depending
on whether the macro- or microscale units are active, for example.

By default, the microscale units are activated for UD composites (p. 42), random UD composites (p. 43),
chopped fiber composites (p. 44) and user defined RVEs (p. 52). Macroscale units are activated for
lattice structures (p. 40) and woven composites (p. 46). If microscale units are active, the top right
corner of the Material Designer interface will display a red µm or nm symbol.

SpaceClaim Length Units

The choice of SpaceClaim length units will determine whether the macroscale or microscale units are
used for Material Designer.

Material Designer Analysis Unit SpaceClaim Length

System Units
Metric Imperial
Microscale units (s, mm, t) Nanometers Mils
Micrometers
Macroscale units (s, m, kg) Millimeters Inches
Centimeters Feet

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Getting Started

Meters Feet &

Inches

Note:

The Material Designer Analysis Unit System will be used when displaying results. The
Spaceclaim length unit will be used for entering values into Material Designer fields. When
you change the Spaceclaim length units, it automatically changes Analysis Unit System to
the corresponding entry in the table above.

Changing the Unit System

You can manually change the unit system in an empty analysis with the following procedure:

1. Choose the RVE Type (p. 39).

2. Click File → SpaceClaim Options → Units.

3. Select the length unit.

Note:

Changing the unit system can lead to problems with creating or meshing geometry due
to tolerances. Switching the Material Designer unit system for a microscale based RVE is
not advised. A change in unit system is often necessary for the User Defined RVE.

1.3. Workbench Workflow Examples

The Material Designer component system can be used for basic and complex load cases and analysis.
The following sections contain some examples of common use cases for Material Designer:
1.3.1. Basic Workflow
1.3.2. Using Computed Materials in Downstream Analyses
1.3.3. Variable Material
1.3.4. Parameter Fitting
1.3.5. Workflow for Woven Composites

1.3.1. Basic Workflow

For simply computing homogenized material data, a single Material Designer component system is
enough:

• Add a Material Designer component system in Workbench,

• Define the constituent materials through Engineering Data.

• Start Material Designer by double-clicking the Material Designer cell.

• Setup and run the analyses as outlined in Material Designer Features (p. 39).

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 Workbench Workflow Examples

Figure 1.6: Material Designer Component System

If you want to examine the computed data in the Engineering Application, connect the Material De-
signer component system to an Engineering Data component system.

Figure 1.7: Material Designer Export to Engineering Data

In this way, you can also export the computed materials for use in other projects.

1.3.2. Using Computed Materials in Downstream Analyses

To use materials computed in Material Designer in subsequent analyses, connect the Material Designer
component system to the Engineering Data cell of the downsteam analysis system. The computed
material will appear in the Engineering Data page and can be used the same way as built-in or user-
defined materials.

Figure 1.8: Material Designer with Static Structural Analysis

For composite materials, you may wish to use ACP to create a composite layup and postprocess the
analysis. In this case, the following example workflow is used:

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Getting Started

Figure 1.9: Material Designer with ACP

1.3.3. Variable Material

To use a computed variable material in downstream analyses, you must provide the field data. You
can do so by adding an External Data system to the project schematic.

The external data needs to specify, for instance, the spatial distribution of the fiber volume fraction
for a workflow with a variable UD material or the distribution of the relative density (volume fraction)
for a workflow with a variable lattice material.

Figure 1.10: Material Designer with Variable Material

If you are using ACP, you do not need the External Data system. Fields can be directly defined in ACP.
In particular, the shear angle (due to draping) is directly computed and made available by ACP. In
this case, the workflow is the same as the constant material workflow.

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 Workbench Workflow Examples

Figure 1.11: Material Designer with ACP

See Analysis Using Variable Material Data for more information on analyses with variable material.

1.3.4. Parameter Fitting

You can define input and output parameters in Material Designer.

Figure 1.12: Parametric Design Workflow

A good example of computing unknown parameters is fitting an unknown property of the fiber ma-
terial to a known property of the composite material. To parameterize constituent material data, open
the Engineering Data cell and parameterize it there.

1.3.5. Workflow for Woven Composites

For woven composites, two Material Designer component systems are required. The second system
models the mesoscopic level (yarns and matrix), while the first system models the microstructure of

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Getting Started

the yarn (fibers and matrix). The yarn is locally treated as a UD composite and its homogenized ma-
terial data is used as an input to the second system.

Figure 1.13: Woven Materials in Material Designer

1.4. Tutorials
The following tutorials are available:
1.4.1. UD Composite Tutorial
1.4.2. Woven Composite Tutorial
1.4.3. User Defined RVE Tutorial

1.4.1. UD Composite Tutorial

The goal of this tutorial is to compute homogenized material data for a UD composite. In this tutorial,
the data from Younes et. al (2012) (p. 81) will be reproduced.

Use the following procedures to compute homogenized material data for a UD composite:

Initialization
1. Open ANSYS Workbench.

2. Drag a Material Designer component system to the project schematic.

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 Tutorials

Define Input Materials

1. Double click the Engineering Data cell of the Material Designer component system.

2. Define a new material for the fiber.

• Add a new material and name it Carbon.

• From the Toolbox on the left, add the Orthotropic Elasticity property.

• Add the following orthotropic elasticity properties:

Young's Modulus 232 GPa

X
Young's Modulus 15 GPa
Y
Young's Modulus 15 GPa
Z
Poisson's Ratio 0.279
XY
Poisson's Ratio 0.49
YZ
Poisson's Ratio 0.279
XZ
Shear Modulus 24 GPa
XY
Shear Modulus 5.033577
YZ GPa

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Getting Started

Shear Modulus 24 GPa

XZ

Note:

We assume that the fiber is transversely isotropic and use the relationship .

3. Define a new material for the matrix.

• Add a new material and name it Epoxy.

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 Tutorials

• From the toolbox on the left, add the Isotropic Elasticity property.

• Add the following isotropic elasticity properties:

Young's 5.35
Modulus GPa
Poisson's Ratio 0.354

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Getting Started

4. Return to the project schematic.

Design Material
1. Double-click the Material Designer cell of the Material Designer component.

2. Click UD Composite in the ribbon bar.

3. Click Constituent Materials in the ribbon bar.

• Assign the Epoxy material to Matrix.

• Assign the Carbon material to Fiber.

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 Tutorials

4. Click Geometry in the ribbon bar.

• Set Geometry Type to Hexagonal.

• Set Fiber Volume Fraction to 0.6.

• Set Fiber Diameter to 5 µm.

5. Click Complete ( ) to create an RVE.

6. Click Mesh in the ribbon bar.

• Activate Use Conformal Meshing and Use Block Meshing.

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Getting Started

7. Click Complete ( ) to obtain a conformal, block structured mesh.

8. Click Analysis Settings in the ribbon bar.

• Uncheck the Use Periodic Boundary Conditions option. This RVE has reflectional symmetries that
allow the use of non-periodic boundary conditions without introducing boundary effects.

9. Click Constant Material in the ribbon bar.

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• Set the Material Name of the new material to Epoxy Carbon UD.

10. Click Complete ( ) to obtain results.

11. Review the results by clicking the Results item in the outline.

In the Results view, you can review calculated material properties such as Young's Modulus,
Poisson's Ratio, and Shear Modulus. You can select values and copy them to the clipboard using
the context menu or by pressing Ctrl+C.

Design Variable Material

The above procedures produced homogenized material data for a composite material. It is possible
to investigate how altering certain properties of the material will alter its final homogenized properties.
Simulate the effects of changing the fiber volume fraction using the following procedure:

1. Click Variable Material in the ribbon bar.

• Choose Fiber Volume Fraction as the Parameter.

• Set the parameter values as 0.2-0.7:7. This notation represents a sampling interval from 0.2 to 0.7
with 7 total samples.

• Leave all other fields at the default.

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Getting Started

2. Click Complete ( ) to obtain results.

3. Click Generated Material in the Outline and set the Material Name to Variable Epoxy Carbon UD. In
addition, set a default Fiber Volume Fraction of 0.5.

4. Click Complete ( ) to finish the generation of the variable material.

5. Review the results by clicking the Results item in the outline.

6. Right click the Variable Material Evaluation item in the outline and click Add Chart.

• In the chart options, select Activate E2.

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7. Click Complete ( ) to obtain the chart.

8. Review the visualized material in the Chart tab.

Review Materials in Workbench

Computed materials can be passed to downstream analyses by connecting the Material Designer
cell of the Material Designer component system to an Engineering Data cell. Use the following pro-
cedure to pass the homogenized material data to a downstream analysis system:

1. In the project schematic in Workbench, add an Engineering Data component system and link the Mater-
ial Designer cell to the Engineering Data cell.

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Getting Started

2. Right-click the Engineering Data cell of the downstream component system and select Update.

3. Double-click the Engineering Data cell of the downstream component system and review the materials
in the Engineering Data screen. The computed materials are available and can be used in further analysis
steps like any other material.

1.4.2. Woven Composite Tutorial

The goal of this tutorial is to compute homogenized material data for woven composites. In particular,
we will also study the effect of shear due to draping.

There will be two Material Designer systems: A system that models the microscale of the yarn
(fiber/matrix) and a system that models the mesoscale of the woven composite (yarn/matrix).

1.4.2.1. Initialize the Analysis

1. Open ANSYS-Workbench.

2. Complete the UD Composite Tutorial (p. 14) with the following modifications:

• Choose a fiber volume fraction of 0.7.

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 Tutorials

• Skip the part about variable material.

Note:

There is an alternative to this step; see step 7.

3. Add another Material Designer system to the project schematic.

4. Transfer the output Material Designer cell A3 to the Engineering Data cell B2 (drag from A3 to B2
(drag cell A3 onto cell B2).

The schematic should now look like this:

5. Update the Engineering Data cell B2.

6. Open the Engineering Data B2 and make sure that the homogenized data of first system is there:

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Getting Started

7. If you skipped the first tutorial, remove the connection from A3 to B2 and define a Material Epoxy
Carbon UD directly inside Engineering Data with the values from above.

8. Define a custom material called Epoxy for the matrix with Isotropic Elasticity (Young's modulus:5.35
GPa, Poisson's ratio: 0.354)

9. Go back to the project schematic.

1.4.2.2. Design the Woven Composite

1. Start Material Designer from cell B3.

2. Choose Woven Composite as RVE Type.

3. Assign the matrix and yarn material:

4. Create the Geometry:

a. Click Geometry .

b. Set the options as follows:

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Choose a fiber volume fraction of 0.55.

Note:

The Yarn Fiber Volume fraction should agree with the setting of the first Material
Designer system.

c. Click Complete to create the geometry.

d. The resulting geometry should look like this:

Note:

We use an RVE where the bisectors between the yarns are the X and Y axis. The
reason is that only like this the homogenized material is actually orthotropic with
respect to the X and Y axis in the presence of shear. Compare Fabric Fiber
Angle (p. 47)

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Getting Started

5. Create a mesh:

a. Click Mesh .

b. Set the following options:

c. Click Complete:

This results in a mesh like:

6. Set the analysis settings:

a. Click Analysis Settings .

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 Tutorials

b. Choose the following settings:

7. Perform an analysis:

a. Click Constant Material

b. Click Complete

c. Wait for the analysis to complete.

d. Investigate the results: Select the Results object in the tree.

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Getting Started

1.4.2.3. Study the Effect of Shear

1. Add a variable material analysis by clicking Variable Material

2. Set the following options:

This means that we will run an analysis for 0, 10, 20, and 30 degrees of shear.

3. Click complete:

4. Wait until the analyses are done.

5. Investigate the results by clicking on the entry Raw Results:

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For more information on how to perform an analysis using this shear dependent material, compare
Shear Dependent Materials in Composite Analysis

1.4.3. User Defined RVE Tutorial

The goal of this tutorial is to compute homogenized material data for a user defined RVE not directly
available in Material Designer. In this tutorial, the data from [Millithaler et al. (2014) (p. 81)] for a
multi-layered laminate electric sheet will be reproduced.

Use the following procedures to compute homogenized material data for a user defined RVE:
1.4.3.1. Initialization
1.4.3.2. Define Input Materials
1.4.3.3. Prepare the User Defined RVE in Material Designer
1.4.3.4. Standard Steps in Material Designer

1.4.3.1. Initialization
1. Download the geometry file that is to be used with this tutorial from here and save it.

2. Open ANSYS Workbench.

3. Drag a Geometry component system to the project schematic.

4. Drag a Material Designer component system to the project schematic.

5. Right click the Geometry component and select New SpaceClaim Geometry to open SpaceClaim.

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Getting Started

6. Click the open file icon ( ) to load the SpaceClaim geometry file containing the RVE bodies that you
downloaded.

1.4.3.2. Define Input Materials

1. Double click the Engineering Data cell of the Material Designer component system.

2. Add two new materials and name them epoxy and steel.

3. From the toolbox on the left, add to both materials the Isotropic Elasticity property.

4. Add the following isotropic elasticity properties:

Epoxy:
Young's 3 GPa
Modulus
Poisson’s Ratio 0.37
Steel:

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Young's 207
Modulus GPa
Poisson’s Ratio 0.25

5. Return to the project schematic.

1.4.3.3. Prepare the User Defined RVE in Material Designer

1. To launch Material Designer double-click the Material Designer cell of the Material Designer component
system.

2. Click User Defined in the ribbon bar:

3. Check that the correct units are specified in Material Designer:

• Select File in the ribbon bar

• Select SpaceClaim Options

• Select Units and check that Micrometers are used as length unit (Note that copying and pasting a
SpaceClaim geometry for the RVE will not work unless micrometers units are used)

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Getting Started

4. Select Geometry in the Material Designer ribbon bar:

5. Transfer the RVE geometry from SpaceClaim to Material Designer. To do so you can simply copy and
paste the bodies from the SpaceClaim active window to the Material Designer active window.

6. Select RVE Model () in the Outline panel and add two phases named steel sheet and epoxy
layer.

7. Select Constituent Materials in the Material Designer ribbon bar.

8. Assign the epoxy material to the epoxy layer and the steel material to the steel sheet .

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9. Select Geometry in the Material Designer ribbon bar.

10. Assign the phases to the RVE bodies:

• Select the phase named steel sheet, then select the two upper and lower bodies of the laminate for

the assignment in the active window and confirm selection ( ).

• Repeat the previous steps for the phase named epoxy layer.

Note:

As all the constituent material properties are isotropic, you do not need to set coordinate
systems explicitly. In a more general case, you would need to set them at this point; see
User Defined RVE (p. 52).

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Getting Started

1.4.3.4. Standard Steps in Material Designer

1. Click Mesh in the ribbon bar.

• Select Use Conformal Meshing and Use Block Meshing.

• Click Complete ( ) to obtain a conformal, block structured mesh.

2. Click Analysis Settings in the ribbon bar.

• Select Compute linear elasticity and Use periodic boundary conditions.

Here, you could also activate non-periodic boundary conditions and the use of material
symmetry in XY without affecting the results, as the RVE possesses the corresponding sym-
metries.

3. Click Constant Material in the ribbon bar.

• Set the Material Name of the new material to Stator Material.

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4. Click Complete ( ) to obtain results.

5. Review the results by clicking the Results item in the outline.

In the Results view, you can review calculated material properties such as Young's Modulus,
Poisson's Ratio, and Shear Modulus. You can select values and copy them to the clipboard using
the context menu or by pressing Ctrl+C.

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Chapter 2: Material Designer Features
The features of ANSYS Material Designer are discussed in the following sections:
2.1. RVE Type
2.2. Assign Materials
2.3. Mesh
2.4. Analysis Settings
2.5. Solve
2.6. Display
2.7. Charts
2.8. Data Management

2.1. RVE Type

Material Designer models materials by generating and analyzing a representative volume element (RVE)
of its micro-structure. Select the type of RVE for the material that you want to analyze from the toolbar.

Figure 2.1: RVE Type Toolbar

If you wish to change the RVE type of your material after you have already selected a type, you can
click the Change icon to access the different types.

Figure 2.2: Change RVE Type

Once you have selected the RVE type, you should define the geometry of the composite using the
Geometry item in the outline (p. 4). The following sections contain information on the different geo-
metries available.

The following RVE types can be created:

2.1.1. Lattice
2.1.2. UD Composite

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Material Designer Features

2.1.3. Random UD Composite

2.1.4. Chopped Fiber Composite
2.1.5. Woven Composite
2.1.6. Particle
2.1.7. Random Particle
2.1.8. Honeycomb
2.1.9. User Defined RVE

Note:

You can parameterize any aspect of composite geometries by clicking the P icon next to the
input box.

2.1.1. Lattice
Lattice structures consist of a material arranged in a repeating lattice.

Figure 2.3: Lattice Geometry Options

• Type: The geometry of the lattice structure.

– Octet

– Diamond

– Cubic

– Cubic with center supports

– Cubic with side cross supports

– Cubic with bottom center supports

– Cubic with side diagonal supports

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 RVE Type

– Cubic with bottom center without vertical supports

– Double pyramid

– Double pyramid with cross

– Double pyramid without lateral support

– User Defined: Allows you to set your own custom lattice structure. Click the button to fully specify the
user-defined lattice.

• Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the lattice material occupies.

• Connecting Spheres: Insert spheres to connect trusses.

• Size: Define the size of the unit cell.

• Add Rounds: Round off the edges within the lattice structure.

– Rounds Relative Radius: The radius of the rounded off edge relative to the size of the unit cell.

• Repeat Count: The number of times that the unit cell is repeated in each coordinate direction.

2.1.1.1. User Defined Lattices

Create a user defined lattice structure by defining points and connecting them to trusses.

• Symmetry: Specify the reflectional symmetries that the RVE should have. It will automatically create
additional trusses to meet this criterion.

• Relative Size: Specify the relative size of the unit cell in each direction. This allows you to create non-
cubic unit cells.

• Points: Specify a name and relative coordinates. The relative coordinates need to be between 0 and
the specified relative size.

• Trusses: Specify the start and end point of each truss as well as a relative truss radius.

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Material Designer Features

Click Export to export the definition of the lattice to a .csv file.

Click Import to import a (previously exported) .csv file containing the lattice definition.

Note:

The user-defined lattice is assumed to be a unit cell; the structure is assumed to be

periodic in all coordinate directions.

2.1.2. UD Composite
Unidirectional composites consist of fibers oriented in the same direction, surrounded by a matrix
material.

Figure 2.4: UD Composite Geometry Options

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 RVE Type

• Geometry Type: Control the arrangement of fibers in cross section within the matrix.

– Square: Cross section of fibers within RVE has fibers arranged as the vertices of a square.

– Diamond: Cross section of fibers within RVE has fibers arranged as the vertices of a diamond.

– Hexagonal: Cross section of fibers within RVE has fibers arranged as the vertices of a hexagon.

Note:

In general, only the Hexagonal geometry type will lead to a transversely isotropic ma-
terial.

• Fiber Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the fiber material occupies.

• Fiber Diameter: The diameter of the individual fibers in the active unit system.

• Repeat Count: The number of times that the unit cell is repeated in each coordinate direction.

• Length Ratio XZ: The ratio of the RVE length in the X direction divided by the length in Z direction.

2.1.3. Random UD Composite

Random unidirectional composites consist of fibers with random variation in the orientation direction,
surrounded by a matrix material.

Figure 2.5: Random Unidirectional Composite Geometry Options

• Fiber Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the fiber material occupies.

• Seed: The seed number against which the random fiber directions are generated.

• Mean angle of misalignment: The mean of the angles between the fiber direction and the X-Axis.

• Fiber Diameter: The diameter of the individual fibers in the active unit system.

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• Repeat Count: Represents roughly the number of fibers that are in the Y- or Z-directions if the fibers were
arranged in a regular pattern.

• Algorithm: The algorithm used to generate the RVE geometry.

– Sequential Addition: Fibers are added one after each other.

– Perturbation (high fiber volume fraction): Start from a regular pattern and perturb the fibers.

Note:

The higher the fiber volume fraction and the mean misalignment angle, the more difficult
it is to generate the RVE. In fact, it is infeasible at some point.

We recommend that you use the Perturbation algorithm for high values of the fiber
volume fraction.

2.1.4. Chopped Fiber Composite

Chopped fiber composites consist of short (chopped) fibers arranged randomly in a matrix material.
The directions of the fibers is random, trying to meet a certain orientation tensor. This allows you to
create RVEs where the fiber directions are uniformly at random, as well as RVEs where certain fiber
directions are more likely than others; in particular you can create RVEs where the fibers are oriented
in a plane.

Figure 2.6: Chopped Fiber Composite Geometry Options

The following options can be defined:

• Fiber Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the fiber material occupies.

• Seed: The seed number against which the random fiber directions are generated.

• Orientation Tensor: Specify the eigenvalues a11 and a22 of the target orientation tensor; see also Orient-
ation Tensor (p. 45).

• Aspect Ratio: The ratio of the length to the diameter of the fibers.

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• Fiber Diameter: The diameter of the individual fibers in the active unit system.

• Repeat Count: The higher this value, the larger the number of fibers in the RVE.

Note:

The fiber volume fraction and the orientation tensor are only reached approximately. See
the status history after the generation of the RVE geometry for the actual values. In partic-
ular, high fiber volume fractions might not be reached when the target value is close to
or exceeds the jamming limit.

2.1.4.1. Orientation Tensor

Consider an RVE with N fibers, with direction unit vectors d(1),...,d(N). The components of the orient-
ation tensor A are defined as

Note:

The sign of the direction unit vectors d(k) can be chosen arbitrarily, as it does not influence
the orientation tensor.

The orientation tensor is a symmetric tensor and its trace (the sum of the diagonal elements) is always
1. The diagonal entries fall into the range [0,1], whereas the off-diagonal entries fall into [-1/2,1/2].

Material Designer strives to create an RVE that has (approximately) a diagonal orientation tensor;
in other words, we try to generate an RVE where the principal axes of the orientation tensor match
the global coordinate system.

Then we are left with the three diagonal entries: a11, a22, a33. The values specify how closely the
fibers are aligned with the corresponding direction. For instance, if the orientation tensor is

then all the fibers are aligned in X direction. If the fiber orientations are uniform in all directions,
then the orientation tensor is

If a33 is zero, for instance for

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Material Designer Features

then the fibers are oriented parallel to the XY plane.

Since the sum of a11, a22, and a33 is always 1, you can specify only the target values for a11 and
a22; a33 is computed automatically.

2.1.5. Woven Composite

Woven composites consist of fiber material that has been woven together in two directions, surrounded
by a matrix material. For the simulation, the fibers and the surrounding matrix material are grouped
into a yarn material. The simulation is performed at the yarn level.

Figure 2.7: Woven Composite Geometry Options

• Weaving Type: The way in which the yarns are woven together.

– Plain: Weft threads pass under one warp thread and then under one warp thread.

– Twill: Weft threads pass over one or more warp threads and then under two or more warp threads.

• Fiber Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the fiber material occupies.

• Yarn Fiber Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the yarn that the fiber material occupies.

Note:

This should correspond to the fiber volume fraction of the constituent yarn material.

• Shear Angle: The angle (in degrees) that the weave is sheared due to draping.

• Yarn Spacing: The distance from one yarn to the next (from centers).

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• Fabric Thickness: The thickness of the woven fabric in the active unit system.

• Repeat Count: The number of times that the unit cell is repeated in each coordinate direction.

• Align Yarn With X Direction: When selected, weft threads are aligned with the global X-direction. Compare
to Fabric Fiber Angle (p. 47).

Note:

The relationship between the fiber volume fraction, the yarn volume fraction, and the fiber
yarn volume fraction is as follows:

fiber volume fraction = yarn volume fraction * yarn fiber volume fraction.

2.1.5.1. Fabric Fiber Angle

For woven composites, the fabric fiber angle is computed as an additional property.

2.1.5.1.1. Motivation
Unsheared woven composites have, correctly, an orthotropic material behavior in the coordinate
system aligned with the yarns (0°/90° coordinate system).

Note that there is a second coordinate system in which the woven material is orthotropic (the
one where the bisectors are the coordinate axes):

However, as soon as there is some shear due to draping, then the material is only orthotropic
with respect to the bisector coordinate system:

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Material Designer Features

Material is not orthotropic with respect to Material is orthotropic with respect to this
this coordinate system. coordinate system.

As it is not natural for the engineer to work with the bisector coordinate system, we provide the
fabric fiber angle as an additional property that allows to transform between the two coordinate
systems.

(Note that the orthotropy of the woven material with respect to the bisectors holds true only for
balanced weaves, i.e. when weft and warp yarns are identical.)

2.1.5.1.2. Definition
The fabric fiber angle is the angle between the material 1 direction (the first principal axis of or-
thotropy) and the (draped) fiber direction.

Illustration of the fabric fiber angle:

black: material coordinate system

green: (draped) fiber direction

red: fabric fiber angle (negative in this case)

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2.1.5.1.3. Consequences
If the flag Align Yarn With X Direction is activated for the woven composite creation, then the
fabric fiber angle is zero. Furthermore, the material 1 direction and the fiber direction agree, but
note that the material is in general not orthotropic with respect to this coordinate system.

This would have a negative effect on the results for sheared woven composites and therefore,
we do not recommend this option for non-zero shear.

If the flag Align Yarn With X Direction is deactivated for the woven composite creation, then the
fabric fiber angle is non-zero and the material properties are computed in the bisector coordinate
system.

If you use this material afterwards in ACP, you can nevertheless still work with the fiber directions.
ACP will compute the material 1 direction based on the fiber direction and on the fabric fiber
angle and set the section data accordingly.

2.1.6. Particle
Particle reinforced composites consist of spherical particles regularly arranged in a matrix material.

Figure 2.8: Particle Geometry Options

The following options can be defined:

• Geometry Type: Control the spheres arrangement within the matrix.

– Simple Cubic: A cubic unit cell with a sphere in the center (maximum volume fraction of about 52%).

– Body Centered Cubic: A cubic unit cell with spheres at all the corners and a sphere in the center (max-
imum volume fraction of about 68%).

– Face Centered Cubic: A cubic unit cell with spheres at all the corners and at the centers of each face
(maximum volume fraction of about 74%).

• Particle Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the particles occupy.

• Particle Diameter: The diameter of the individual particles in the active unit system.

• Hollow Particles: Generate hollow rather than solid particles.

– Particle Wall Thickness: Wall thickness of hollow particles in the active unit system. This value has to
be smaller than the radius of the particle.

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Material Designer Features

• Repeat Count: The number of times that the unit cell is repeated in each coordinate direction.

2.1.7. Random Particle

Random particle reinforced composites consist of spherical particles arranged randomly in a matrix
material. Besides the position, also the particles size can be randomly assigned following either a
Uniform or a Log-Normal distribution.

Figure 2.9: Random Particle Geometry Options

The following options can be defined:

• Seed: The seed number against which the random particle position and possibly diameter are generated.

• Particle Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the particles occupy.

• Diameter Distribution: The particle diameter distribution. Depending on the distribution type different
parameters can be specified.

– Constant: The diameter is fixed and set equal to Particle Diameter.

– Uniform: The particle diameter follows a continuous uniform distribution with values in the range
between Min Particle Diameter and Max Particle Diameter.

– Log-Normal: The particle diameter follows a log-normal distribution whose mean and standard deviation
are specified by Mean Particle Diameter and Std. Dev. Particle Diameter, respectively.

Note:

Due to the limitations imposed by the RVE periodicity and the need to create a suitable
mesh, the particle diameter is forced to be larger than a program controlled minimum
diameter and smaller than half the unit cell size.

• Hollow Particles: Generate hollow rather than solid particles.

– Particle Wall Thickness: Wall thickness of hollow particles in the active unit system. This value has to
be smaller than the radius of the smallest particle.

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 RVE Type

• Size Ratio: The ratio between the edge length of the cubic unit cell and the average particle diameter.

Note:

The particle volume fraction and the particle distribution moments are only reached ap-
proximately. See the status history after the generation of the RVE geometry for the actual
values.

2.1.8. Honeycomb
Honeycomb structures consists of cells with hexagonal shape repeated in two dimensions.

Figure 2.10: Honeycomb Geometry Options

The following options can be defined:

• Type: The type of honeycomb geometry.

– Extruded: All cell walls have the same thickness. See also Figure 2.12: Extruded Honeycomb Geometry
(p. 52).

– Expanded: Cell walls in the ribbon direction (perpendicular to the direction of expansion) have double
thickness. See also Figure 2.11: Expanded Honeycomb Geometry (p. 52).

• Specify Volume Fraction/Foil Thickness: Whether to size the RVE by specifying the volume fraction or
the foil thickness.

• Volume Fraction: The fraction of space within the RVE that the honeycomb material occupies.

• Foil Thickness: The thickness of the foil (sometimes referred to as wall thickness or paper thickness).

• Side Length: The length of the cell edges.

• Cell Angle: The angle of the cell in degrees (60 corresponds to a regular hexagonal cell, 90 to an over-
expanded cell).

• Thickness: Core thickness of the honeycomb panel.

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Material Designer Features

• Repeat Count: The number of times that the unit cell is repeated in X and Y direction.

Figure 2.11: Expanded Honeycomb Geometry

Note:

the ribbon direction corresponds to the x direction, while the expansion direction
corresponds to the y direction.

Figure 2.12: Extruded Honeycomb Geometry

2.1.9. User Defined RVE

A user defined RVE consists of one or more phases and each of the phases consists of one or more
solid bodies.

Set Up the User Defined RVE Type

In contrast to the predefined RVE types, you first need to provide some information about these
phases.

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 RVE Type

Name: Specify the name of the user defined RVE type.

Phase: Specify a name for each phase of the RVE.

Note:

You can get back to these options by selecting the RVE model node in the Outline.

Create the User Defined RVE

First create or import the user defined geometry and then specify the options. See Hints for Importing
Geometry for User Defined RVEs (p. 56) for more information.

Note:

A coordinate system must already exist for the body in order to select it as the element
orientation.

• Name: Specify a name for the User Defined RVE.

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Material Designer Features

• Phase assignment: select the Phase you want to assign, then select the corresponding solid geometries

in the working space and click Assign Bodies. .

• Element orientation assignment: You can assign a coordinate system to one or more bodies. Alternatively,
you can use edge and/or surface guides to define the element orientation for the elements of one or more
bodies. To assign element orientation:

1. Click + to add a new assignment.

This will activate the tool guides that allow you to define the element orientation assignment.

2. Click the Select Bodies icon , then select the bodies on which you want to define element ori-
entations.

3. Set up a coordinate system, or Edge/Surface Guides:

– Click the Select Coordinate System icon , then select the coordinate system which you want
to use for the element orientation assignment.

Note:

This will clear any edge and surface guides as they can not be combined with co-
ordinate systems.

– Click the Select Edge Guide icon , then select the edges that you want to use as edge guides
for the element orientation assignment.

Note:

This will clear any coordinate systems as they can not be combined with edge
guides.

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 RVE Type

– Click the Select Surface Guide icon , then select the surfaces that you want to use as surface
guides for the element orientation assignment.

Note:

This will clear any coordinate systems as they cannot be combined with surface
guides.

4. Click the Complete Element Orientation Assignment icon to finalize the element orientation
assignment.

5. If you chose edge and/or surface guides, set the element axis that you want to correspond to the
tangential vectors of the edge guide or the normal vectors of the surface guide:

– Use the Edge Guide Axis combo box to define to which axis of the element orientation
the tangential vectors of the edge guide should correspond.

– Use the Surface Guide Axis combo box to define to which axis of the element orientation
the normal vectors of the surface guide should correspond.

You can also select an existing element orientation assignment and use the buttons to change the

assignment method. Click to remove the assignment.

Note:

– You don't need to specify the coordinate system for all bodies. The global coordinate system
will be used for all bodies that are not explicitly assigned an element orientation.

– You can visualize the resulting element orientation; see Display Element Orientation (p. 63).

The procedure to compute the element orientation in the cases of edge and surface guides works
roughly as follows:

The edges and surfaces are discretized. For edge guides, the tangential vectors at these discretized
points are used. For surface guides, the normal vectors at these discretized points are used. For
simplicity, assume that the edge guide should define the X Axis and the surface guide should define
the Z Axis.

Then, for each element covered by the assignment, the element orientations is determined as follows:

– The application obtains the surface normal direction (N-vector) at a location on the Surface Guide closest
to the element's centroid and aligns the specified axis (Z axis) with it.

– The application obtains the tangential direction (T-vector) to the edge at a location on the Edge Guide
that is closest to the element's centroid.

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Material Designer Features

– The cross-product of the N-vector and T-vector calculates the 3rd axis (Y axis).

– The tangential, 2nd axis (X axis), is obtained by taking the cross-product of the N-vector and the 3rd
axis.

In the case that only edge guides or only surface guides are defined, the application uses the surface
normal direction or the tangential direction at a location that is closest to the element's centroid
and uses this vector for the corresponding axis. The other axes are chosen arbitrarily. You should
use this only for transversely isotropic constituent materials.

Note:

For user defined RVEs, the only available parameter in a variable material analysis is tem-
perature (provided that at least one of the constituent materials is temperature dependent).

2.1.9.1. Hints for Importing Geometry for User Defined RVEs

Follow these steps to successfully import the geometry for a User Defined RVE:

• Select User Defined RVE. By default, this activates the microscale modeling.

• If your SpaceClaim document destined for import is in microscale units then you can directly open the
corresponding geometry file.

• If you have a SpaceClaim document in macroscale units, Material Designer will not import it, since
mixing of macroscale and microscale documents is not allowed. Change the unit system in the current
document by clicking File → SpaceClaim Options → Units and change the length units to macroscale
ones. In the case of metric units, there is the following distinction:

– Macroscale units: m, cm, mm

– Microscale units: µm, nm

See Unit Systems (p. 9) for more information.

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 RVE Type

There is a shortcut to switch between normal scale and small scale units for user defined RVEs.

Click on Geometry, then click on one of the tool guides ( or ) to activate the normal
scale or small scale units, respectively. Note that this is only possible for an empty document.

• Open your RVE geometry and switch to the newly opened tab.

• Copy and paste the RVE geometry from your SpaceClaim document to your Material Designer document,
possibly including coordinate systems, by the following steps:

– In the Structure tab, select all bodies and coordinate systems and copy them with CTRL+C.

– Switch to the Material Designer document and paste them with CTRL+V.

Notice that the bodies should be in the main part and not in components.

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Material Designer Features

2.2. Assign Materials

Composite materials consist of two or more materials. You should import these materials into Material
Designer using the Engineering Data screen in Workbench. These materials are then assigned within
Material Designer.

Figure 2.13: Assign Materials

In the above figure, select the material for the Matrix and Fiber from the drop-down menu. These lists
are populated with materials imported from the Engineering Data screen in Workbench. Depending on
the RVE type, you may select Matrix and Fiber (as above), Lattice, or Matrix and Yarn.

Press the i button to review the material data. This opens the material properties dialog.

Figure 2.14: Material Properties Dialog

If the reviewed material is variable, you can change the parameters to query the material data at different
values. Note however that this does not have any effect on the subsequent analyses at all.

2.3. Mesh
In order to create the homogenized material data for the composite material, the RVE must be meshed
for finite element analysis.

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 Analysis Settings

Figure 2.15: Create RVE Mesh

• Maximum Size: Maximum size of elements.

• Adapt Toward Edges: Refine the mesh toward the inner edges.

• Use Block Meshing: When selected, use a block decomposition to generate the block structured meshes.

• Use Conformational Meshing: Generate a conformational mesh (coincident topologies are shared and, as
a result, mesh nodes at the interfaces are shared). If not activated, general contacts are used.

• Use Periodic Meshing: Generate periodic meshes (meshes suitable to enforce periodic boundary conditions).
For this, the meshes of opposite faces of the RVE boundary must be the same.

2.4. Analysis Settings

Analysis settings allow you to control aspects of the finite element analysis of the RVE. In particular,
you can choose which material properties to compute.

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Material Designer Features

Figure 2.16: Analysis Settings

• Type of anisotropy: The type of anisotropy of the homogenized material:

– Orthotropic

– Anisotropic

• Compute linear elasticity: Compute the material constants for linear elasticity. For orthotropic materials,
Material Designer computes engineering constants (Young’s moduli, shear moduli, Poisson’s ratios). For
anisotropic materials, the stiffness matrix is computed.

• Compute coefficients of thermal expansion: Compute the orthotropic secant coefficients of thermal ex-
pansion (only available for orthotropic materials and if the linear elasticity is computed in addition).

• Compute thermal conductivity: Compute the orthotropic thermal conductivity (only available for ortho-
tropic materials).

Note:

If possible, the density is computed in addition to the properties above. Similarly, if possible
and if the thermal conductivity is computed, the specific heat is also computed.

• Use Periodic Boundary Conditions: apply periodic boundary conditions (p. 73) to the finite element ana-
lysis.

• Material Symmetry: Make use of symmetry to reduce the number of necessary load cases. The simulated
material is assumed to behave the same in the listed directions. The stiffness matrix is invariant under the
permutation of all entries corresponding to the two selected directions. For the other material properties,
the assumption needs to hold analogously.

• Temperature: Specify the environment temperature. This temperature is used to evaluate the material
properties.

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 Solve

• Reference Temperature: Specify the zero-thermal strain reference temperature. This is used for computing
the coefficients of thermal expansion.

Note:

If the Temperature and the Reference Temperature are equal, the Reference Temperature
is slightly modified for the computation of the coefficients of thermal expansion.

2.5. Solve
Click the Constant Material icon under the Solve menu to perform the finite element analysis and
export the material to Workbench.

• Material Name: The name of the homogenized material.

2.5.1. Solve Variable Material

To create a variable material that depends on one or more parameters, click the Solve Variable Ma-
terial icon under the Solve menu to perform the finite element analysis and export the parameterized
material to Workbench.

• Parameter names and values: Choose the parameter and set the values that are sampled. You can click
on the button next to the text box to edit the parameter values more easily in a dialog. For the values,
you can specify either:

– a comma separated list; for instance, 0.2,0.4,0.7.

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Material Designer Features

– the start and end value as well as the number of samples for this parameter; for instance, 0.2-0.7:6 cor-
responds to 0.2,0.3,0.4,0.5,0.6,0.7.

Note:

– For more than one parameter, all combinations of the parameter values are sampled.

– If you use a comma as the decimal delimiter (per the number format settings in Windows),
you nevertheless need to input the numbers here with a dot as the decimal delimiter.

The parameters that can be varied are geometry parameters (for example, Fiber Volume Fraction,
Shear Angle, etc.) and the Temperature. Temperature is shown only if any of the constituent mater-
ials is temperature dependent.

Note:

You should specify Temperature as the last parameter because then the geometry and
mesh update can be skipped in some cases (namely when the same geometry is solved
more than once consecutively).

• Number of samples per design point: The number of samples generated for each combination of
parameter values (only for randomized RVEs).

• Seed: The seed number used to generate the seeds for each RVE (only for randomized RVEs).

• Continue after failed evaluation: If an update of an RVE fails, continue with the evaluation of the next
RVE.

• Keep scdocs of failed RVE evaluations open: If the update of an RVE fails, keep the corresponding
document open (such that you can investigate it).

• File Handling: Choose how to proceed with generated files.

Note:

• The Material Designer opens new documents to evaluate the variable material.

• If Continue after failed evaluation is active and some of the evaluations fail, then the Variable
Material Evaluation is in a partially up-to-date state (indicated by an orange check-mark). You
can continue with the generation of the material.

In addition, you can also try to redo the failed evaluations by choosing Recompute
Failed in the context menu.

2.5.2. Generated Material

You can specify additional options about how the variable material is exported to Workbench.

• Material name: The name of the homogenized, variable material.

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 Display

• Interpolation options: You can specify the options that are used afterwards to interpolate values; see
also General Interpolation Library.

– Algorithm: Choose the interpolation algorithm.

– Normalize: Activate to normalize the parameter values for the interpolation.

– Cache: Activate to cache interpolation results.

– Defaults: For each parameter, specify the default value which is used for the interpolation if this para-
meter is not specified.

Note:

You can choose which design points to include by clicking on the corresponding check
boxes on the Raw Results Tab.

2.6. Display
You have the ability to change the way information is displayed about your model.
2.6.1. Display Element Orientation

2.6.1. Display Element Orientation

Click the Element Orientation icon to toggle hiding and showing the element orientations.
Note that you first need to create an RVE geometry and a mesh before you are able to show them.

Click Element Orientation and select Display Options to change the settings
of the element orientation display.

Figure 2.17: Display Element Orientation Options

The element orientations of each body can be set either by:

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Material Designer Features

• A fixed coordinate system

• Edge and/or surface guides

• The default coordinate system

For the predefined RVE types, the element orientation display is specified in the template. For User
Defined RVEs (p. 52) you can manually set these options. For example, the matrix phase in a predefined
RVE type is assigned the default coordinate system. However, each fiber body in a chopped RVE is
assigned a fixed coordinate system.

With the following two options, you can control for which bodies the element orientations are shown:

Show Default Orientations: Show the element orientations for the bodies which use the default
coordinate system.
Show Constant Orientations: Show the element orientations for the bodies which use a fixed
coordinate system.

The element orientation is always shown for bodies that use edge and/or surface guides.

Note:

The element orientation is not shown for hidden bodies.

With the following options, you can control how the element orientations are displayed:

Line Form/Solid Form: Use Line Form to display the element orientations using lines. Use the
Solid Form to display the element orientations with arrows.
X/Y/Z Axis: Toggle which axes of the element orientations are shown. The X,Y, and, Z axis are
displayed in red, green, and blue, respectively.
Density: Control for which fraction of the elements the corresponding element orientation is
shown. Slide fully to the right side to display the element orientation for all elements.
Scale: Scale the lines/arrows of the displayed element orientations.

2.7. Charts
You can generate charts of the generated variable material properties. To so, right click Variable Ma-
terial Evaluation in the outline window and select Add Chart.

This adds a node in the outline and shows the following options:

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 Data Management

• Property Set: Choose the property set that you want to plot.

• Properties: Choose the properties of the selected property set that you want to plot.

Note:

This depends on the chosen property set.

• Parameter: Choose the parameter versus which you want show the material properties (X Axis).

Click Complete to open a new window tab with the chart.

2.8. Data Management

You can perform various tasks within Material Designer to keep your material data up to date:
2.8.1. Update
2.8.2. Clear Generated Data
2.8.3. Export to CSV
2.8.4. Export to h5

2.8.1. Update
Clicking the Update icon under the Update menu will update any downstream fields to changes you
have made. For example, if you have changed the geometry of the RVE, performing an update will
regenerate the model.

You can use the Update option in the context menu of any item in the Outline (p. 4) to update
only that specific item.

2.8.2. Clear Generated Data

Click the Clear Generated Data icon ( ) to clear the solution data from the analysis.

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Material Designer Features

2.8.3. Export to CSV

Use the context menu of the Results entries in the Outline (p. 4) to export the computed material
data to a .CSV file.

2.8.4. Export to h5
Use the context menu of the RVE model in the Outline to export the definition of the RVE model to
an hdf5 exchange file format.

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Chapter 3: Theory Documentation
Numerical simulation of composite structures is challenging due to the differences in involved length
scales. Consider a wind turbine rotor blade made of glass fiber reinforced composite materials: the
diameter of the glass fibers is a few micrometers, while the diameter of the turbine is 100 meters. This
is a scale difference of roughly eight orders of magnitude.

While the finite element method could be used to simulate the structural mechanics of this system
(resolving all length scales), it is not practical. The number of elements required would be astronomically
large, and computing the finite element solution would be infeasible, both on modern and near-future
computing hardware.

This scale difference is also a problem in additive manufacturing. 3-D printing allows the generation of
parts on the meter scale, with complex microstructures. The ratio of the involved length scales is
smaller than in the example of the composite blade, but still presents a significant computing challenge
with a single finite element model resolving all length scales.

The standard approach to eliminate this problem of scale in finite element analysis for composite ma-
terials is homogenization. Material properties for a composite material are averaged, rather than simu-
lating the full complex microstructure. With homogenized material data, structures only need to be
simulated at the macroscopic scale, making composite simulation significantly less computationally
expensive.

The simplest way to perform homogenization is to use an analytic approach: rules-of-mixture or mean-
field homogenization (see for instance [Younes et. al (2012) (p. 81)]). A more accurate approach is finite
element analysis of the microscale structure of the material, which is the approach implemented in
Material Designer. The following sections describe the finite element analysis approach to performing
material homogenization.
3.1. Homogenization in Material Designer
3.2. Modeling Assumptions
3.3. Computation of Material Properties

It should also be mentioned that there is a reverse process called dehomogenization or localization. In
order to investigate why a structure fails at a certain location, analysis is shifted from the macroscopic
to the microscopic scale. On the finer level, the cause of failure is determined.

Figure 3.1: Homogenization vs. Dehomogenization

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Theory Documentation

If both length scales are fully coupled in a numerical simulation, it is called a multi-scale simulation.
The most common approach is often called FE2, as there is a separate microscopic finite element simu-
lation for every integration point of the macroscopic finite element simulation (see for instance
[Kouznetsova (p. 81)] for an overview of this approach). In general, multi-scale simulation is very com-
putationally expensive and should be avoided (if possible). Instead, Material Designer performs a single
computationally expensive preprocessing step that leads to variable, homogenized material data, and
results in a macroscopic simulation that is significantly less computationally expensive.

In all of the simulation approaches described, there is an assumption of scale separation. The microscale
structures must be significantly smaller than the macroscale (compare also [Geers et. al (2010) (p. 81)]).
If this assumption is violated, the micro- and macroscale cannot be modeled independently. However,
this assumption is reasonable for both composite materials and additive manufacturing, and is assumed
in all computations.

3.1. Homogenization in Material Designer

Material Designer assumes that the material under consideration has a representative microscale
structure: the representative volume element (RVE). This is a small volume of the material that is still
large enough to exhibit the correct macroscopic material properties. For periodic materials, this can be
easily identified as one unit cell. In a periodic material, this unit cell repeats itself in all three coordinate
directions. Thus, it contains all the information about the material and it is sufficient to consider only
the behavior of the single unit cell.

For non-periodic materials, identifying the size of an RVE is more complicated. One approach to invest-
igate whether a considered volume is large enough to be representative is to increase the size of the
volume and investigate whether the macroscopic properties change significantly. If this is the case, the
initial volume was not large enough. If macroscopic properties remain fixed, the initial volume is likely
suitable as an RVE. For a more detailed discussion of the concept of RVE and unit cell see [Kouznet-
sova (p. 81)] or [Li, et. al (2015) (p. 81)].

The homogenization process starts with modeling the RVE. This requires the creation of a simplified
geometry, as well as the definition of material properties of the constituent materials. Subsequently,
the geometry is meshed for finite element analysis. The RVE is then exposed to several macroscopic
load cases, and its response is computed. The homogenized material data is computed from the results
of these responses.

3.2. Modeling Assumptions

The following sections present the modeling assumptions for the different types of RVEs available in
Material Designer. The assumptions are suitable for the desired analyses, but are not always true in
reality.
3.2.1. Lattice Structures
3.2.2. Unidirectional (UD) Composites
3.2.3. Random (Misaligned) UD Composites
3.2.4. Chopped Fiber Composites
3.2.5. Woven Composites
3.2.6. Particle Reinforced Composites
3.2.7. Random Particle Reinforced Composites

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 Modeling Assumptions

3.2.8. Honeycomb Structures

3.2.9. User Defined RVE

3.2.1. Lattice Structures

• Lattice structures are made of one isotropic linear-elastic material.

• Lattice structures are periodic.

• Lattice structures consist of trusses that are cylindric.

3.2.2. Unidirectional (UD) Composites

• UD composites consist of an isotropic linear-elastic matric material and an isotropic or transversely iso-
tropic (in 1 direction) linear-elastic fiber material.

• Fibers are infinite, cylindrical, and have the same fiber diameter.

• Fibers are perfectly aligned with the X-axis of the RVE.

• Fibers form a regular (periodic) pattern.

• Bonding between the fibers and matrix material is perfect.

3.2.3. Random (Misaligned) UD Composites

• Random UD composites consist of an isotropic linear-elastic matric material and an isotropic or transversely
isotropic (in 1 direction) linear-elastic fiber material.

• Fibers are infinite, cylindrical, and have the same fiber diameter.

• Bonding between the fibers and matrix material is perfect.

• The mean orientation of the fibers is in X direction.

3.2.4. Chopped Fiber Composites

• Chopped fiber composites consist of an isotropic linear-elastic matrix material and an isotropic or trans-
versely isotropic (in 1 direction) linear-elastic fiber material.

• Fibers are cylinders of finite length. The length and diameter is the same for all fibers.

• The RVE is periodic.

• Fibers are equally distributed in all directions.

• Bonding between the fibers and matrix material is perfect.

3.2.5. Woven Composites

• Woven fiber composites consist of an isotropic linear-elastic matrix material and an isotropic or transversely
isotropic (in 1 direction) linear-elastic yarn material.

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Theory Documentation

• The yarn fiber volume fraction is constant.

• The RVE is periodic (the weaving pattern is regular and layers of woven composite are laying exactly on
top of each other).

3.2.6. Particle Reinforced Composites

• Particle reinforced composites consist of an isotropic linear-elastic matrix material and an isotropic linear-
elastic particle material.

• Particles are arranged in a regular (periodic) pattern.

• Particles are spherical. Their diameter is fixed.

• Bonding between the particle and matrix material is perfect.

3.2.7. Random Particle Reinforced Composites

• Random particle reinforced composites consist of an isotropic linear-elastic matrix material and an isotropic
linear-elastic particle material.

• Particles are spherical. Their diameter follows the specified distribution.

• The position of the particles is random.

• In case of hollow particles, the wall thickness is equal for all particles.

• The RVE is periodic.

• Bonding between the particle and matrix material is perfect.

3.2.8. Honeycomb Structures

• Honeycomb structures are periodic.

• The cell structure is uniform and perfect; cell walls have uniform thickness (except for expanded honey-
combs, where cell walls in the ribbon direction have double thickness), and all cells are the same size.

• Honeycomb structures are made of one orthotropic linear-elastic material. The material 1 direction is
aligned with the cell edges, the material 2 direction is aligned with the global Z direction, and the mater-
ial 3 direction corresponds to the normal to the cell walls.

• In case of expanded honeycombs, bonding between cells is perfect. In addition, the adhesive material
used to bond the sheets and the resin possibly used for coating are not modeled.

3.2.9. User Defined RVE

A user defined RVE consists of one or more phases and each of the phase consists of one or more
solid bodies.

• Each phase consists of a linear elastic material (which can be isotropic, orthotropic or anisotropic).

• The RVE is an axis-aligned rectangular cuboid.

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 Computation of Material Properties

• All the bodies need to be directly in the MainPart of the document (no components).

• The bodies may not intersect each other.

• The connection in between the bodies as well as between the bodies and the RVE boundary must be such
that there are enough constraints for each body for each load case, in particular:

– There needs to be a face on each boundary face of the RVE.

– Isolated bodies in the interior are not allowed.

3.3. Computation of Material Properties

The following sections describe the computation of homogenized material properties:
3.3.1. Orthotropic Linear-Elastic Material Properties
3.3.2. Fully Anisotropic Linear-Elastic Material Properties
3.3.3. Orthotropic Secant Coefficients of Thermal Expansion
3.3.4. Orthotropic Thermal Conductivity

3.3.1. Orthotropic Linear-Elastic Material Properties

The following equations describe the computation of orthotropic elasticity constants for a periodic
unit cell. To perform this computation, 6 load cases are considered: 3 tensile tests (X, Y, Z) and 3 shear
tests (XY, YZ, XZ). A corresponding macroscopic strain is applied in each case, and reaction forces in
the boundary faces of the RVE are used to assemble the stiffness matrix. Engineering constants are
then extracted.

Consider the tensile test in the X-direction. For an orthotropic material, the following relation exists:

(3.1)

If the strain in the X-direction is fixed to = 0.001 and all other strains are set to zero, the first column
of the stiffness matrix is obtained:

(3.2)

Making use of the periodic structure, this is reached in the following way (compare also
[Li,(2008) (p. 81)] or [Li, et. al (2015) (p. 81)] for a more detailed discussion of boundary conditions
for unit cells). Assume the RVE occupies the volume . On the faces normal to
the X-axis, enforce

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Theory Documentation

(3.3)

On faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce

(3.4)

On faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce

(3.5)

In addition to these periodicity conditions, rigid body motions must also be prevented. This is done
by enforcing

(3.6)

There are alternatives (p. 73) to these periodic boundary conditions. Unless there exist enough sym-
metries, these alternatives lead to boundary effects. On periodic structures, periodic boundary condi-
tions should be used.

To compute macroscopic stresses, the forces on the top faces are integrated. Consider . The force
in the X-direction at the face is integrated. is obtained by normalizing with the face area.
and are obtained similarly. The entries for , , and in the stiffness matrix are easily ob-
tained.

By repeating the steps for all the other load cases (see Periodic Boundary Conditions (p. 73)), all the
entries for the stiffness matrix are obtained. The stiffness matrix is inverted to obtain the compliance
matrix:
(3.7)

Finally, the engineering constants , , , , , , , , and are computed from the

relationship

(3.8)

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 Computation of Material Properties

3.3.1.1. Periodic Boundary Conditions

For completeness, the boundary conditions used in the different load cases are presented here as
well. In each load case, one quantity of , , , , , and is set to a predefined value
(0.001) and all the other quantities are set to 0.

On the faces normal to the X-axis, enforce

(3.9)

On the faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce

(3.10)

On the faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce

(3.11)

To avoid rigid body motions, enforce

(3.12)

3.3.1.2. Non-Periodic Boundary Conditions

For the tensile tests, one quantity of , , and is nonzero, all the others are set to zero.

On the faces normal to the X-axis, enforce

(3.13)

On the faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce

(3.14)

On the faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce

(3.15)

For the shear XY case, the boundary conditions are set as follows (with ).

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On faces normal to the X-axis, enforce

(3.16)

On faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce

(3.17)

On faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce

(3.18)

The boundary conditions for shear XZ can be obtained by switching the roles of y and z.

The boundary conditions for shear YZ can be obtained by switching the roles of x and y (starting
from the shear XZ case).

3.3.2. Fully Anisotropic Linear-Elastic Material Properties

The procedure to calculate fully anisotropic linear-elastic material properties is similar to the one used
to compute orthotropic linear-elastic material properties (p. 71). The primary difference is that the
full stiffness matrix must be computed. Still, each load case yields one column of the stiffness matrix.
In contrast with the orthotropic linear elastic computations, more integrated force results must be
extracted. For instance, in the tensile tests, both the normal components of the forces on the
boundary faces and the tangential components are extracted and used to compute entries in the
stiffness matrix. For the anisotropic linear-elastic case, engineering constants are not determined. The
entire stiffness matrix is the primary result for this material type.

Note:

Non-periodic boundary conditions cannot be used for anisotropic linear-elastic materials,

as they will yield incorrect results. For example, all the tangential forces on the boundary
would be zero by definition for the tensile test (in x). This would lead to , , and
being zero, which is obviously incorrrect for an anisotropic material.

3.3.3. Orthotropic Secant Coefficients of Thermal Expansion

The following equations describe the computation of orthotropic secant coefficients of thermal ex-
pansion. To perform this computation, one load case is needed in addition to the 6 load cases needed
for computation of the orthotropic elasticity constants.

For a orthotropic linear elastic material with thermal strain, the strain is given by:
(3.19)

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 Computation of Material Properties

where the thermal strain is given by:

(3.20)

If we now fix the strain and enforce an increase of the temperature by from the zero-
thermal-strain reference temperature, we obtain:

(3.21)

Inserting the definition of the thermal strain, this simplifies to:

(3.22)

The values of the stresses are obtained by integrating and normalizing the force reactions on
the boundary of the RVE. The stiffness matrix [D] is known from the other 6 load cases. From those
values, we can compute the secant coefficients of thermal expansion.

It only remains to specify how the boundary conditions are actually enforced, which is done in the
following sections.

3.3.3.1. Periodic Boundary Conditions

To enforce a vanishing macroscopic strain we enforce the following conditions:

On the faces normal to the X-axis, enforce:

(3.23)

On the faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce:

(3.24)

On the faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce:

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(3.25)

To avoid rigid body motions, enforce

To enforce a thermal strain, we fix the zero-strain reference temperature and raise the temperature
by a small fixed .

3.3.3.2. Non-Periodic Boundary Conditions

To enforce a vanishing macroscopic strain we enforce the following conditions:

On the faces normal to the X-axis, enforce:

(3.26)

On the faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce:

(3.27)

On the faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce:

(3.28)

To enforce a thermal strain, we fix the zero-strain reference temperature and raise the temperature
by a small fixed .

3.3.4. Orthotropic Thermal Conductivity

The following equations describe the computation of orthotropic thermal conductivity. To perform
this computation, 3 load cases are needed, each of which applies a temperature gradient in X, Y, and
Z direction, respectively.

For a material with orthotropic thermal conductivity, Fourier's law specifies the following relation
between the heat flux and the temperature gradient :

(3.29)

where [D] is the conductivity matrix:

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 Computation of Material Properties

(3.30)

If we now apply a fixed temperature gradient in x direction, i.e. if has a fixed value and

, , we obtain

(3.31)

We can solve for to obtain:

(3.32)

By integrating and normalizing the heat flux on the boundary face normal to X-axis, we can easily
obtain and thus, we get the thermal conductivity in X direction .

In a similar manner, we can also obtain and

(3.33)
.

It remains to specify how we enforce the fixed temperature gradients, which we will do in the following
sections.

3.3.4.1. Periodic Boundary Conditions

In each load case one of the quantity of , , and (the components of the temperature
gradient) is set to a predefined value and all the other quantities are set to 0.

On the faces normal to the X-axis, enforce

(3.34)

On the faces normal to the Y-axis, enforce

(3.35)

On the faces normal to the Z-axis, enforce

(3.36)

To fully constrain the model, enforce

(3.37)

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Theory Documentation

3.3.4.2. Non-Periodic Boundary Conditions

For the load case with temperature gradient in X-direction, we enforce only boundary conditions
on the faces normal to the X-axis and they are given by

(3.38)

with a non-zero .

For the load case with temperature gradient in Y-direction, we enforce only boundary conditions
on the faces normal to the Y-axis and they are given by

(3.39)

with a non-zero .

For the load case with temperature gradient in Z-direction, we enforce only boundary conditions
on the faces normal to the Z-axis and they are given by

(3.40)

with a non-zero .

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Chapter 4: Best Practices
The generation and evaluation of RVEs is sometimes tricky. Here are some common pitfalls and possible
workarounds (also note the items listed in Known Limitations (p. 2)).

4.1. Lattice structures

Adding rounds to the lattice structure makes it more difficult to generate the geometry and to mesh
it.

• If the geometry creation fails:

– Try creating the geometry without rounds.

– Try decreasing the round radius.

• If the meshing fails:

– Try to deactivate the periodic meshing (if enabled).

4.2. Woven composites

If the geometry creation or the meshing fails, try using the “Simplified” algorithm as this one is much
more robust and quicker. It has an effect on the results, but in many cases it is only moderate.

• If meshing fails, try decreasing the mesh width.

• Try to deactivate the periodic meshing (if enabled).

4.3. Chopped Composites

Note that the higher the fiber volume fraction is, the more difficult it is to generate the geometry. In
particular, it is infeasible at some point.

• If meshing fails, try to deactivate periodic meshing and/or decrease the mesh width.

• Enabling the Block Meshing option is not advisable for this RVE type.

4.4. Misaligned UD Composites

• If the geometry creation fails for high fiber fractions, try using the "Perturbation" algorithm.

• If meshing fails, try to deactivate periodic meshing and/or decrease the mesh width.

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Best Practices

4.5. Random Particle Reinforced Composites

Note that the higher the particle volume fraction is, the more difficult it is to generate the geometry.
In particular, it is infeasible at some point.

• Enabling the Block Meshing option is not advisable for this RVE type.

• If meshing fails, try deactivating periodic meshing and/or decreasing the mesh width.

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Chapter 5: References
1. Younes, R., Hallal, A., Fardoun, F., and Chehade, F.H., "Comparative Review Study on Elastic Properties
Modeling for Unidirectional Composite Materials", in Hu, N., Composites and Their Properties, Chapter 17,
2012

2. Kouznetsova, V.. "Computational homogenization for the multi-scale analysis of multi-phase materials."
Eindhoven : Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2002. 120 p.

3. Li, S., Jeanmeure, L.F.C. & Pan, Q. J, "A composite material characterisation tool: UnitCells", J Eng Math (2015)
95: 279.

4. Geers, M., Kouznetsova, V., Brekelmans, W.. "Multi-scale computational homogenization: Trends and chal-
lenges", Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, Volume 234, Issue 7, 1 August 2010, pp. 2175-
2182

5. Li, S., "Boundary conditions for unit cells from periodic microstructures and their implications", Composites
Science and Technology, Volume 68, Issue 9, 2008, pp 1962-1974

6. Millithaler, P., Sadoulet-Reboul, E., Ouisse, M., Dupont, J.-B., and Bouhaddi, N.,“Equivalent Orthotropic
Material Properties for Stators Of Electric Cars”, in Topping, B.H.V., Iványi, P. (Editors), "Proceedings of the
Twelfth International Conference on Computational Structures Technology", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire,
UK, Paper 201, 2014.

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