Which material law works the best to define the unidirectional prepreg tape in thermoforming simulation.

Sarjan Tiwari_21602

I am using the Hyperform environment in Hypermesh to perform some thermoforming simulations with unidirectional prepreg tape. I am having trouble properly defining the material properties. Since material Law 12,14,15,19 and 25 all are for orthotropic materials, I tried to use Law 58 but the warp and weft direction properties are not applicable for unidirectional prepreg. Also, it's hard to define the ply and resin properties separately for the prepreg. So, I was wondering what would be the best way to define the unidirectional prepreg tape characteristics.  

Rogerio Nakano_21179

Hi

You may attempt to model the ply with LAW25 and shell mesh, or with LAW12 and solid mesh. And the interface (likely the resin you mentioned)  between the plies, with either solid element and LAW12 or with /MAT/CONNECT.

 

I hope this is helpful

Regards