DIGIMAT

DIGIMAT is a state-of-the-art nonlinear multi-scale material & structure modeling platform, which helps engineers to design and optimize composite materials in a fast and cost effective way.

DIGIMAT is a state-of-the-art nonlinear multi-scale material & structure modeling platform, which helps engineers to design and optimize composite materials in a fast and cost effective way. From small scale nanocomposites via honeycomb sandwich panels up to fiber reinforced plastics, rubber and hard metals, DIGIMAT software covers a large variety of materials being used in automotive, aerospace, consumer and industrial equipment industries. With its six different tools which can be licensed separately, the DIGIMAT modeling platform also offers a high degree of modularity.

Mean Field homogenization for fast and accurate prediction of non-linear behavior

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Using the Mori-Tanaka and double homogenization schemes, DIGIMAT-MF allows the prediction of material properties for all kinds of inclusions and inclusion sizes. Different material models for both, the matrix and the inclusions can be applied to define the micro-structure as accurate as possible. Mechanical, thermal and electrical loadings can be used to analyze the corresponding material behavior for single-layer microstructures as well as for multilayer materials. Different failure modes such as maximum stress/strain, Tsai-Hill, Tsai-Wu, Hashin and many more can be considered as well. A tree data structure makes this modeling tool user friendly.

Finite Element analysis of representative volume elements (RVE)

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With DIGIMAT-FE, realistic RVEs can be generated, considering all kinds of inclusion shapes and material properties. So far, a direct coupling to LS-DYNA is not possible but shall be in the future. By now, RVE geometries can be exported as common CAD formats: .step, .iges & .brep.

Material eXchange platform for DIGIMAT users and material suppliers

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DIGIMAT-MX gives its users access to experimental data as well as to material models created with DIGIMAT for both, homogenous and composite materials. These data are in general available for different temperatures, humidity, strain rates and loading angles. This helps the user to reverse engineer his material properties without extensive testing and with a huge amount of references when linking this feature to DIGIMAT-FE. For confidential purposes, encryption is also available.

Coupling of FEA – software to enable a multi-scale analysis of composite materials and structures

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Coupling DIGIMAT to LS-DYNA allows users to consider the micro-mechanical behavior of their composite materials during the complete structural analysis. By using the “hybrid” solution method, no additional calculation time is required and by mapping fiber orientations from process-simulation software, the full process chain from produceability to serviceability is considered during the structural design. DIGIMAT-CAE analyses can be performed implicit and explicit. The coupling to process simulation is available for all the main software tools available on the market such as Moldflow for moulding simulations or Simulayt for draping.

Mapping tool, closing the gap between process- and structural analysis

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This very useful feature allows the mapping of mid-plane shell properties onto multi-layered shell models as well as the mapping between 3D continuum elements. It is also possible to transform the properties between different FE-meshes used for the process- and the structural analysis. Scaling, translation, rotation and superposition of the donor- and the receiving mesh is also available. Error indicators which are output directly after the mapping allow the validation of the quality of the generated mapped data.

GUI guided workflow tool for coupled analyses

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With “Reinforced Plastics” e-Xstream poured 10 years of experience into a GUI guided tool that aids the setup of coupled analysis in an easy and understandable way, uniform to all communities. This release will support the setup of 3D analyses with LS-DYNA, Marc, MSC Nastran, Abaqus, and Ansys based on Moldflow, Moldex3D, Sigmasoft or Timon 3D processing results. All Digimat solution technologies are supported. Jobs can either be run and monitored on a local computer or packaged for the remote solution on a cluster.

Prediction of composite sandwich panels micromechanical behavior

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This tool allows the definition of honeycomb core ands skins pile-up as well as the computation of failure indicators for core and skin layers. An automatized mesh generation is also available for three steps of mesh refinement: coarse, average and fine. The pile up can be symmetric and anti-symmetric. Standard loadings such as three/four-point bending and in-plane shear can be applied with customized positions and amplitudes for loading points and fixations.

Digimat-VA (“Virtual Allowables”)

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is an efficient solution that empowers engineers to virtually compare materials before going into the lengthy physical allowables. By generating virtual allowables, engineers can now start the component design in parallel to the physical allowable campaign.

Digimat-VA is a vertical solution developed to virtually compute the behavior of composite coupons (unnotched, open hole, filled hole). It allows engineers to screen, select and compute the allowables of composite materials in less time and at less cost.

A standard combination of the different DIGIMAT tools for licensing would be DIGIMAT-MF, DIGIMAT-map and DIGIMAT-CAE, allowing engineers to close the gap between process simulation and serviceability simulations as well as the consideration of micromechanics in their full scale analysis. For an in-depth look into the material, DIGIMAT-FE allows the user to generate RVEs, mesh them and even perform micromechanical simulations with the generated structures. Willing to avoid extensive experimental testing and sharing generated data with other users of the DIGIMAT community, the DIGIMAT-MX exchange platform is recommended for a first approach during the basic material characterization.