Newly extended support for FEA interfaces simplifies the accurate and efficient study of plastic parts. (Image courtesy of MSC Software.)
Combining descriptions of local composite behavior with the ability to store and build material data, Digimat offers a engineers the ability to study materials at the microscopic level.
This includes calculating thermal, mechanical and electrical properties for use in later analyses, such as finite element analysis (FEA). Engineers can also build material models suited for coupling micro- and macroscale models, and Digimat’s design tools make it easy to predict nonlinear behavior and perform structural testing.
This detailed insight into material behavior often enables a reduction in the safety factors and weight of manufactured parts, saving money on material use. Such multiscale modeling also reduces the prototyping time needed to bring an optimized product to market and supports the manufacturing of new innovative composites.
Workflow efficiency has been improved, and several key new features have been added to the toolbox as well. Notably, Digimat 2017.0 boasts the ability to perform progressive failure analysis of short fiber reinforced plastic using implicit FEA solvers. This can be done alongside element deletion or through material stiffness reduction and allows designers to predict ultimate part strength and damage progression.
Being able to quantify the onset of failure and ultimate part strength fully through simulation removes the need for further virtual assessment, enabling faster design validation.
Also available in the release are tools for predicting discontinuous fiber composites’ interchip delamination or failure. These allow full characterization of discontinuous fiber composite materials for various loading and microstructure conditions.
New advanced materials with woven geometries are also now accessible in 3D, where users can specify a pattern for orthogonal and interlocking woven materials.
Lastly, Digimat can now interface with the Radioss/shell, Optistruct and Permas FEA codes to enable efficient analyses of plastic parts.
To read more about Digimat, visit the MSC Software website.
To read more about the latest release, visit the e-Xstream website.