Author(s)

S.P. McEntee & C.M. O Bradaigh

Abstract

A large deformation finite element model for forming of unidirectional continuous fibre reinforced composite plies is presented. The composite ply is assumed to behave as an ideal fibre reinforced fluid, thus having the constraints of inextensibility in the fibre direction and material incompressibility. The model uses a quasi-static approach to simulate the behaviour of the material during forming processes. A large deformation displacement formulation is presented which uses the penalty method to maintain the kinematic constraints of incompressibility and fibre inextensibility during mesh updating between each static time step. Results from some simple test cases are presented. 1 Introduction Sheet forming manufacturing

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