Mesh superposition applied to meso-FE modelling of fibre-reinforced composites: Cross-comparison of implementations

The most used method for calculation of mechanical properties of the fibre-reinforced composites on the scale of unit cell of the reinforcement consists in continuous meshing of the reinforcement and matrix volumes. Often, this leads to bad quality or large size of the generated mesh. Mesh superposition (MSP) techniques allow overcoming these issues by independent meshing of both components while coupling them together based on constraint equations. In the present work, two different implementations of MSP techniques are investigated in detail, and results are compared with a common method and experiment for a simple unidirectional reinforcement geometry and a complex 3D weave composite. An MSP formulation for large deformations case is described. Results show good agreement in local strain distributions and in prediction of the homogenized mechanical properties.status: publishe