Material parameter identification of a thermoplastic using full-field calibration

Finite element simulation of thermoplastic components is gaining importance as the companies aim to avoid overdesign of the components. Cost of the component can be minimized by using an adequate amount of material for its application. Life of the component, in a particular application, can be predicted as early as during its design phase with the help of computer simulations. To achieve reliable simulation results, an accurate material model which can predict the material behaviour is vital. Most material models consist of a number of material parameters that needs to be fed into them. These material parameters can be identified with the inputs from physical tests. The accuracy of the data extracted from the physical tests, however, remains the base for the aforementioned process. The report deals with the implementation of optical measurement technique such as Digital Image Correlation (DIC) in contrast with the conventional extensometers. A tensile test is conducted on a glass fibre reinforced thermoplastic specimen, according to ISO 527-2/1A, to extract the experimental data with the help of DIC technique. The material behavior is reproduced within a finite element analysis software package LS-DYNA, with the combination of elastoplastic model called *MAT_024 and stress state dependent damage and failure model called GISSMO. The tensile test is performed under quasi-static condition to rule out the strain rate dependency of the thermoplastic material. The mesh sensitivity of the damage model is taken into account with the element size regularization. The thesis concerns setting up a routine for material parameter identification of thermoplastics by full-field calibration (FFC) approach. Also, comparison of the strain field in the specimen, obtained through the newly set up routine against the regular non-FFC i.e. extensometer measurement routine. The major objective being, through the comparisons, a qualitative assessment of the two routines in terms of calibration time vs. gain in simulation accuracy. Material models obtained through both the routines are implemented in three-point and four-point bending simulations. The predicted material behaviors are evaluated against experimental tests