Finite Element Analysis of E-glass/Epoxy Composite for Automotive Structures
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Date
2015-04
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Composites materials are intended to be used more extensively as an alternative of aluminum structure in aircraft and aerospace applications. This is due to their attractive properties as high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness-to-weight ratio. Besides that it clarifies the growing interest for composites materials due to advantages of lightweight, high strength, high stiffness, superior fatigue life, tremendous corrosion resistance and low cost manufacturing.
This study analytically and numerically analyzes the tensile and compressive behavior of a plain woven E-glass/epoxy composite. In the analytical part of the study, rule of mixture (RoM) approach and Halphin/Tsai models are considered for ply property analysis and theoretical laminate analysis and then used for constructing MATLAB code used to verify FEA results. In the numerical part of the study, a finite element analysis (FEA) of plain woven E-glass/ epoxy composite is designed as two unidirectional laminate with orientation angles and ply order [0/90/0/90/0/90/0/90/0/90] with a total number of 10 plies was analyzed in the frame work of ABAQUS 6.13-4 and ANSYS work bench finite element commercial soft wares. The analysis was done to quantify the mechanical properties and response of woven E-glass in term of tensile and compression. To create a composite model in ABAQUS and ANSYS it is necessary to calculate the ply properties as input data. In this work the input data are gathered from the analytical models and the experimental study conducted by Esmail Adem at Addis Ababa university in 2013. From the analysis, the maximum values of stress, strain and load at failure for woven E-glass /Epoxy were obtained and stress-strain and load-displacement curves are presented.. Moreover, the mechanical characteristics obtained by the Rule of Mixture approach used in the analytical study are very close to the values obtained by three-dimensional finite elements analysis. The simulation was set to run three times with different amount of displacements to minimize the effects on results of simulation and to see the effects for both tensile and compressive tests which is the same as the displacements at failure of the experimental study at different strain rates. The simulation is successfully conducted and verified by experimental data. The results from both models are compared and verified.
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mechanical design Stream