Micromechanics Plugin for Abaqus

The Micromechanics Plugin for Abaqus is a tool for generating RVE models in Abaqus finite element software, which allows defining the components of a microstructure, constituents of a system and/or microstructures, and it is particularly common for modeling composites, or the unit cell of lattice (cellular ) structures common in additive manufacturing.

Investigating the micromechanical behavior of composite materials is an important issue in mechanical engineering; Because the failure of composite materials occurs on a micro-scale. Examining the behavior and mechanism of failure in this scale gives a good insight to the design engineer of composite structures to improve the design and construction process of composite structures.

The advantage of this plugin is to facilitate the work for finite element analysts, which used to be tedious and time-consuming work.

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Key Features/Technology of Micromechanics Plugin

Automate the process of creating RVEs

• A library for commonly used RVEs (UD, Ellipsoid, BC lattice)
• Add your RVEs

Boundary conditions

• Periodic boundary conditions
• Taylor boundary conditions
• Neumann boundary conditions

RVE physics study

• Mechanical analysis
• Steady-state heat transfer, and
• Steady-state coupled temperature-displacement.

Homogenization of the material properties of the RVE

It includes elastic stiffness, thermal expansion, shell section stiffness (ABD matrix), thermal conductivity, fully coupled conductivity-stiffness (9×9 constitutive matrix), density, and specific heat.

Post-processing

• field averaging
• histogram generation

Installing the Plugin

Extract the contents of the zip folder into a subdirectory of the abaqus_plugins folder, which can either be located in the home directory (in which case the plugin will be available whenever Abaqus is run) or within the current working directory of your Abaqus/CAE session.

Compatibility

The FE-RVE features of the plugin are designed to be compatible with Abaqus/CAE 2016 and later. Earlier versions of Abaqus/CAE will not function correctly.

Updates

V1.18 – 4/26/2022

• Fixes issue with periodic boundary conditions for non-periodic meshes in with Abaqus/CAE version 2022·
• Fixes issue that caused the 13 and 23 components of far-field stress to be swapped for periodic- and uniform surface gradient-type models (e.g., specifying 13 components of stress caused the application of 23 components and vice-versa).

Who this plugin is for:

• Engineering or science students and professionals who working on micromechanical analysis of composite structures
• Advanced students, Ph.D. students, or researchers for their Abaqus FEA projects
• Any Abaqus Application Engineer who is involved with various simulation projects daily

What you’ll gain