The Abaqus Micromechanics Plugin (FE-RVE) is an essential tool for generating Representative Volume Element (RVE) models in Abaqus finite element software. It allows engineers to seamlessly define the components of a microstructure, constituents of a system, or the unit cell of lattice (cellular) structures commonly used in additive manufacturing. By replacing tedious and time-consuming manual setup with automation, this Abaqus micromechanics plugin empowers design engineers to vastly improve the development and construction processes of composite structures.

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 on 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 the Micromechanics Plugin

This tool is built to facilitate complex workflows for finite element analysts. It eliminates repetitive tasks and ensures high accuracy in microscale modeling.

Automated RVE Generation:

• Process Automation: Automate the entire process of creating complex FE-RVEs.

• Extensive RVE Library: Access a built-in library for commonly used RVEs, including Unidirectional (UD), Ellipsoid, and BC lattice structures.

• Custom RVEs: Easily add and configure your own custom RVEs.

Advanced Boundary Conditions (BCs):

Applying precise boundary conditions is notoriously difficult in manual Abaqus scripting. This plugin fully automates:

• Periodic Boundary Conditions (PBC)
• Taylor Boundary Conditions
• Neumann Boundary Conditions

RVE physics study

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

Comprehensive Physics Study & Homogenization

To truly understand composite failure analysis, you need accurate physical solvers and material homogenization. The Abaqus micromechanics plugin supports multi-physics simulations directly within Abaqus/CAE.

Supported RVE Physics Studies:

• Mechanical Analysis

• Steady-state Heat Transfer

• Steady-state Coupled Temperature-Displacement

Automated Material Homogenization:

Extracting macro-scale properties from micro-scale RVEs is fully automated. The plugin evaluates and extracts:

• Elastic Stiffness

• Thermal Expansion

• Shell Section Stiffness (ABD matrix)

• Thermal Conductivity

• Fully Coupled Conductivity-Stiffness (9×9 constitutive matrix)

• Density and Specific Heat

Advanced Post-Processing:

Evaluate your results instantly with built-in tools for field averaging and detailed histogram generation.

Compatibility, Installation, and Updates

• Compatibility: The FE-RVE features are meticulously designed to be compatible with Abaqus/CAE 2016 and later versions. (Note: Earlier versions of Abaqus/CAE will not function correctly).

• Installation: Simply extract the contents of the zip folder into a subdirectory of your abaqus_plugins folder. This can be located in the home directory (making the plugin available globally) or within the current working directory of your specific Abaqus/CAE session.

• Latest Updates (V1.18): Continuous improvement is guaranteed. The latest update fixes issues with periodic boundary conditions for non-periodic meshes in Abaqus/CAE 2022. It also corrects an issue that caused the 13 and 23 components of far-field stress to be swapped for periodic- and uniform surface gradient-type models.

Who Will Benefit from This Plugin?

• Engineering Students & Professionals: Anyone working on the micromechanical analysis of composite structures who wants to bypass steep coding learning curves.

• Academic Researchers & Ph.D. Students: Ideal for researchers focusing on composite failure analysis and complex RVE modeling for their Abaqus FEA projects.

• Abaqus Application Engineers: Professionals involved in daily industrial simulation projects looking to accelerate their FE-RVE workflow.

What You Will Gain