Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWMThis main focus is on functional design of fiber and particle reinforced lightweight components and insulating materials.
Lightweight Construction
In lightweight construction – as well as in the automotive and consumer segments (e.g., drill housings) – fiber reinforced plastics are increasingly replacing metals as the work material. Predicting the strength and damage effects of these components regarding the directional dependency of the mechanical material characteristics is complicated. Therefore, complex multiscale simulations are required for accurate predictions. The computational time (CPU time) and the computer memory requirements are very high for these multiscale simulations.
To reduce these high computational efforts, we are working on methods on the basis of so-called configurational forces. With these forces, macroscopic indicators can be defined, that will allow to take into account the microstructure precisely only in necessary subdomains of the component.