Numerical analysis of a GLARE aircraft panel

The goal of this Thesis is to study the structural behavior of a panel made of GLARE (Glass reinforced aluminium) laminate for various design parameters and input loads. This Master's thesis is to be developed within the framework of the European-Funded Horizon 2020 project "ACASIAS", which is devoted to design smart fuselage panels with embedded antennas. Airframes are subjected to various loads from mechanical to thermal loads during operations of aircrafts. Sections made by using GLARE are affected by this loads,in terms of their mechanical properties. Adetailed understanding of the behaviour of these laminates is necessary for further improvement of their performance and durability. With the increase in complexity of structures and material systems, the need for powerful design tools becomes evident.Numerical simulation is a very powerful tool to investigate the behaviour of materials and structures. In this thesis, the mechanical behaviour of fiber metal laminates has been characterized via numerical analysis.This work was carried out focusing on thenumerical simulation of the structures made out of GLARE, using PLCd finite element code,an FE code, developed by the RMEE (Department of Structures and Strength of Materials, UPC) and CIMNE (International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering) which allows the accurate analysis of elastic and plastic behaviour of materials under various loads. Several numerical tests have been simulated.Special attention has been placed on describing the Serial/Parallel mixing theory and its scope to deal with thenumerical simulation.An iterative learning process has been carried out in order to get the enough knowledge to deal with the simulation of the experimental testscarried out in other literaturesources. The preliminary stages have been done with aim ofgaining experience regarding the mesh sizes,parameter inputsand the differences obtained with different parametersin terms of numerical results accuracy and also computational time costs.Afterwards, simulations havebeen donein order to learn how to simulate aluminium composite laminates in the linear and non-linear range, as well as to fully understand the performance of the SPtheory. The simulations conducted and the results analysedhave allowed to obtain an excellent understanding on the mechanical performance of both aluminium and composite materials, the complexities associated with material non-linearities, and the requirements of non-linear finite element methods. This work presents all these simulations as well as the conclusions obtained from each one of them.Hence, the SP mixing theory, in addition with an appropriate constitutive equations, has showed that the approach is capable ofsimulatingloads and predict the materialnon-linear behaviourof the composite components.The concept of continuum damage mechanics is used, with a damage modelfor fiber and matrix