AN ADAPTIVE METHODOLOGY FOR EFFICIENT MODELLING OF ARBITRARY DELAMINATIONS DURING CRASH SIMULATIONS

The introduction of fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) in the automotive industry is strongly dependent on accurate and efficient modelling tools to predict the correct energy absorption in crash simulations. From experimental observations during axial crushing, it is obvious that in order to obtain good predictability in the simulations, delamination growth needs to be accounted for. Common practice to model delamination initiation and growth is to model each ply by separate elements, interconnected by cohesive interface elements. However, due to restrictions on the simulation time, such high-fidelity models are not feasible to use in industrial applications such as full vehicle crash simulations. We have previously presented an adaptive enrichment methodology for modelling of multiple and arbitrarily located delamination cracks using an equivalent single-layer (ESL) shell model. Due to the extreme level of complexity, crash simulations are usually performed using dynamic explicit solvers. Any adaptive methodology must therefore be adapted to fit this type of solver. This poses a problem since explicit solvers are very sensitive to modifications like refinements during the simulation. Consequently, besides yielding accurate results and being computationally efficient, the implementation must be numerically robust.