PROJECT: Development of User Interfaces for Numerical Techniques for Stress Analysis of Laminated Composite Materials
SPONSOR – Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Washington DC and Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: Autar Kaw, Glen Besterfield, and Brian Shanberg
DATES: September 1994 – June 1995
DESCRIPTION: Over the past four decades, researchers in universities and industries have developed numerous models to understand the mechanics of composite materials. The use of these models by other researchers or designers generally either requires them to reprogram the models or interpret long source codes which may have only very few helpful comment statements. If one wants to make rapid technology transfer, then the easy and inexpensive use of computational models by scientists and engineers (other than the developers) is critical.
The investigators in the current research will address this problem by developing pre-processor and post-processors for the NEW spline variation element numerical program developed at Wright- Patterson Air Force Base for advanced laminated composites. These processors will be user-friendly and will require the end user to only input the data required for the model, and then choose among various output options after the program has executed. This procedure follows the same philosophy as interactive commercial finite element programs such as ALGOR, ANSYS, etc.