An automated procedure for the generation and conformal discretization of 3D woven composites RVEs

A generation tool is developed for complex three dimensional textile reinforced composites Representative Volume Elements (RVEs). This integrated methodology takes into account contact conditions between yarns with polygonal convex cross sections by means of an iterative geometry generation scheme. The tensioning of the yarns is applied in an implicit geometrical manner resulting in their movement leading to contacts between them. The non-circular shape of their cross sections requires the use of a rotational degree of freedom to describe their movement. This rotational degree of freedom is managed during the contact solving procedure. A level set-based post-processing is then used at the end of RVE the generation to automatically supress any residual interpenetration, that further enables controlling the volume fraction (Vyarn) of each family of yarns in the RVE. A thin clearance can also be inserted between yarns during the post processing phase in order to ease the subsequent conforming mesh generation. An implicit geometry-based meshing procedure is subsequently used to produce a high quality discretization of the obtained RVEs. This integrated procedure is used for various woven and 3D RVEs to illustrate its versatility, showing that the discretized RVEs can be used for parametric studies based on computational homogenisation.