A multiple anisotropic material finite element and its application to stiffness tensor predictions for woven composite lamina

The effective anisotropic stiffness tensor Cijkl of a woven composite lamina can be calculated by performing a finite element analysis (FEA) of the representative volume element (RVE); however, the complex geometry of heterogeneous RVEs makes meshing tedious. This paper develops two unique multiphase voxel elements (MVEs) that account for multiple materials within an elemental domain by utilizing the material properties at each integration point to develop local strain corrections. Studies performed on simple cuboid geometries show exceptional agreement with standard FEA results, and results from the new voxel elements are more accurate than previous MVEs presented in literature. The application for these new MVEs is demonstrated on plain and twill weave composite laminae, and the results generated are in exceptional agreement with experimental results available in the literature and computationally expensive studies using standard finite elements.