Modelagem do comportamento termo-mecânico transiente de estruturas de materiais compósitos pela teoria de volumes finitos

Abstract

The advance of the materials science has motivated the advent of composite materials with different characteristics that assure high performance thermo-mechanical, such as the advanced fiber reinforced composites and those that present a gradual variation in its microstructure. Nowadays, many computational models and analytical methods are being employed for evaluation of the behavior of such materials. An alternative technique, applied to the steady-state thermo-mechanical analysis, which considers the coupling between microstructure and macrostructure behaviors, is that originally denominated of Higher-Order Theory. In this work is used the same theoretical base of the Higher-Order Theory, with a simplification in the discretization and assembly of the system of equations. In this way, this theory presents some similarities in relation to the finite-volume technique used in fluid dynamics problems, reason for which is enough reasonable to adopt the denomination finitevolume theory for this method. Besides, as a contribution of this study, it is presented a parametric formulation that allows a larger flexibility in the mesh generation and a reduction of the problem in relation to the number of variables, particularly appropriate for analysis of structures with curved contour. The formulation was also extended for the accomplishment of transient thermo-mechanical analysis. In the present study, a three-dimensional formulation of the method is also used for the determination of the effective properties of fiber reinforced composites and particulate materials, where comparisons were accomplished with micromechanics simplified models and with those based on the mean field theory (selfconsistent, Mori-Tanaka and differential scheme). Besides, there is a series of numerical applications in bi-dimensional thermo-elastic and elastic problems, where are accomplished verifications using analytical solutions and comparisons with the finite element method.