Abstract

In the last decades, the improvements in terms of computational power provides the capability to analyze with more detail the materials behavior. On one hand, going deeper in the materials to study an increasingly smaller dimension and capture micro- or nano- changes. On the other hand, the increasing computational memory allows to perform finite elements analysis with millions of nodes, that permits to obtain more accurate results. In this scenario, the focus of this work is the numerical modeling of the microscale behavior of inhomogeneous materials, with special attention to composite materials under thermo-mechanical loading conditions. This work also proposes and implements optimization tools, at a constitutive law level, as well as the level of both, macro- and micro-structural algorithms. The study presents two computationally efficient multiscale procedures cables of predicting the mechanical non-linear response of composite materials. This is achieved, using an RVE Data Base (DB) calculated a-priori. Through the definitions of an equivalent damage parameter (deq), function of the global stress at the microscale, a series of strain controlled virtual tests of the RVE are performed storing in the DB the homogenized stress and strain state reached at certain levels of deq. Afterwards, the solution of the macroscale structure can be solved using the interpolation of the stored data.