A method for designing fiber-composite parts in which part performance and manufacturing efficiency can be traded-off against one another to provide an “optimized” design for a desired use case. In some embodiments, the method involves generating an idealized fiber map, wherein the orientation of fibers throughout the prospective part align with the anticipated load conditions throughout the part, and then modifying the idealized fiber map by various fabrication constraints to generate a process-compensated preform map.

A global optimization tool may be used to predict characteristics of a multiple ply layered composite as a condition of one or more continuous variables and/or one or more binary variables. For example, the global optimization tool may predict characteristics of a composite for a large range of fiber orientation angles of each of layer of the ply. The optimization tool may include solving a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model to obtain a multiple ply layered composite design that is optimized relative to objectives, such as areal weight and cost. Thus, the global optimization tool may be able to identify composite designs with lower areal weight and/or lower cost than the composite designs identified by prior art trial and error methods or heuristic algorithms. When a composite design is identified as meeting certain criteria that are input to the global optimization tool, that composite design may be manufactured.

Wrinkling of a contoured composite laminate part during forming to contour is reduced by using laminate plies having off-angle reinforcing fibers that provide the part with primary axial strength along a major axis of loading.

An apparatus is provided for analysis of a repair for a structure by identifying component parts of the structure that have common material properties and geometric constraints, and based thereon determining a generic repair component for the component parts that also have the common material properties and the geometric constraints. A set of loads are extracted from a loads model of the undamaged structure and redistributed in a loads redistribution model at a damaged or defective portion of the component part. The set of redistributed loads indicate loading incurred by the generic repair component under an external load. The apparatus then uses the redistributed loads to perform an analysis to determine a margin of safety of the generic repair component and, in instances in which the margin of safety is positive, outputs the material properties and geometric constraints of the generic repair component to a fabrication system for production thereof.

Method of designing a laminate substrate having upper laminate layers and an equal plurality of lower laminate layers including: dividing the laminate substrate into regions having corresponding laminate layer pairs consisting of an upper laminate layer and a lower laminate layer; calculating a net stretching value for each corresponding laminate layer pair in each region to result in net stretching values in each region; summing the net stretching values in each region to result in a net stretching value for each region proportional to a curvature of each local region; calculating a relative out-of-plane displacement for the laminate substrate from the curvature of each local region; calculating a predicted thermal warpage for the laminate substrate; and finalizing a design of the laminate substrate when the predicted thermal warpage is within a predetermined acceptable range.

According to one implementation, a method of making design information of an aircraft structural object, executed by a computer, includes: setting at least one parameter as a variable for an optimization calculation which minimizes a weight of the structural object composing an aircraft; setting at least one allowable range for at least a strength of the structural object corresponding to the at least one parameter; and calculating an optimal value of the weight of the structural object and a value of the at least one parameter by the optimization calculation. The at least one parameter expresses the design information of the structural object. The at least one allowable range is set as at least one constraint condition of the optimization calculation. The value of the at least one parameter corresponds to the optimal value and meets the at least one allowable range.

Systems and methods for semi-discrete modeling of progressive damage and failure in composite laminate materials are disclosed. An example method includes receiving, from a user, a fibrous strip width and a fibrous strip spacing, and creating a finite-element (FE) mesh by: generating, using a structured hex meshing algorithm, a plurality of fibrous strips along a fiber direction based on the fibrous strip width and the fibrous strip spacing, and generating, using a free hex-dominated advancing front meshing algorithm, a bulk element between each of the plurality of fibrous strips. The FE mesh may define a portion of a composite laminate material. The example method includes determining a predicted mechanical response of the composite laminate material by: generating a constitutive model corresponding to the composite laminate material based on the FE mesh, and inputting a stress value or a strain value to the constitutive model to generate the predicted mechanical response.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for result caching to improve the statistical efficiency of a composite model comprising a first component model and at least one other component model. The method comprises developing at least one metamodel for at least one component model of the composite model, computing a re-use factor that maximizes an asymptotic efficiency measure based on the metamodel, determining a number of executions to run for the composite model, and determining a number of executions to run for the first component model based on the re-use factor and the number of executions to run for the composite model. The number of executions to run for the first component model is fewer than the number of executions to run for the composite model. Each output generated from each execution of the first component model is cached and provided as input to another component model.

A method of analyzing a structure includes producing a finite element model of the structure having fibers embedded therein, and including one or more plies. This may include performing a discretization of a digital model of the structure in which each ply of the one or more plies is represented by a mesh of finite elements aligned with a direction of uni-directional fibers embedded in the ply. Producing the finite element model may also include adding a fiber-aligned intraply interface element between selected adjacent finite elements in the mesh of each ply to capture potential intraply failure modes. And the method may include performing a finite element method (FEM) failure analysis of the finite element model under a load, with the FEM failure analysis producing an output that indicates an extent of any of the potential intraply failure modes that result from the finite element model under the load.

An electromagnetic field analysis method for an anisotropic conductive material obtained by laminating a first layer, in which a conductivity in a first direction is different from a conductivity in another direction, and a second layer, in which a conductivity in a second direction is different from that in another direction includes: grid-partitioning the first and second layers respectively with a first computational grid having a side extending in the first direction and a second computational grid having a side extending in the second direction; calculating an electromagnetic component of one of electric and magnetic fields in the second grid by interpolation from distribution of an electromagnetic component of the one of electric field and magnetic fields in the first grid; and calculating an electromagnetic component of the other field in the first grid by interpolation from distribution of an electromagnetic component of the other field in the second grid.