PSI - Issue 37

Anastopoulos G. Stylianos et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 37 (2022) 485–491 Anastopoulos G Stylianos et al/ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000 – 000

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Fig. 1. Methodology flowchart

The aforementioned steps were followed at three optimization cases having different maximum number of iterations and different objective value. In the first case, the maximum number of iterations was 20 and the maximum objective value 5 MPa. In the second case, the maximum number of iterations was 200 and the maximum objective value 1 MPa. In the third case, the maximum number of iterations was 1000 and the maximum objective value 1e-4 MPa.

2.1. Representative Volume Element homogenization The calculation of the E eff

calculated was performed within the homogenization tool of ANSA ® Pre-Processor, applying the multi-Step method at a RVE of 800 mm edge size. The minimum distance between two neighbor inclusions was set at 50 μm. The number of the positioned inclusions was 200 up to 250.

2.2. Inclusions positioning

The c ontinuity between adjustment RVEs was ensured by using “periodic geometry algorithm”. In case an inclusion cross over from the RVE volume to the outside space, the part of the inclusion that is located outside of the RVE volume is being re-placed as continuing from the opposite surface as in Fig. 2a. This process provides to the created composite geometry with a realistic inclusions’ dispersion.