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About DYNAFAB™

DYNAFAB™ is a preprocessor with a user-friendly GUI used to automatically create finite element models of 2D and 3D fabrics such as plain weave and unidirectional architectures. Creating high quality finite element meshes of these fabrics is time consuming and a laborious task. Each time the mesh needs to be refined, it has to be redone from scratch. Similarly, each time the fabric’s geometry or architecture is varied, as is normally done during a parametric study, the whole model needs to be set up from scratch. Some research codes exist that can create CAD geometries of fabrics. However those models sometimes use idealized cross sections and suffer from excessive penetrations which would lead to drastic errors during a finite element simulation unless corrected. Further, those codes cannot automatically create high quality meshes with only hexahedral elements. In fact there currently is no other commercially available independent software that can automatically create high quality finite element meshes of fabrics using only hexahedral elements. To fill this void in the scientific community, DYNAFAB™ was created. Researchers can now devote their time to the actual simulations and physics of the problem rather than spending hours and days setting up finite element meshes. DYNAFAB™ creates LS-DYNA® formatted keyword inputfiles that are ready to use in a simulation. Therefore users do not need to purchase very expensive third party CAD and preprocessing software. Further if any changes that are needed in the model, they can be done using LSTC’s free preprocessor LSPrePost®. However if users already possess licenses to other modeling and simulation software such as Altair Hypermesh®, CATIA®, Patran®, Abaqus®, and ANSYS®, then the model created using DYNAFAB™ can be easily imported into those software using standard built-in templates. Thus DYNAFAB™  doesn’t necessarily need to be used only with LS-DYNA®. DYNAFAB™ is currently designed to run only on a Windows XP based computer. Please join the newsletter subscriber’s list using the link on the left to keep yourself up to date with the latest news and developments. Users can also join the user support group by using the link on the left. We welcome any and all feedback and comments. Contact information can be obtained using the link on the left.

 

Quick Overview of DYNAFAB™ Capabilities

· Use dimensions and shapes from actual fabric micrographs to create realistic FE models

· Plain weave fabric with interlaced undulating yarns

· Unidirectional tows with straight, undulating horizontal, and undulating vertical centerlines

· Thirteen different tow cross sectional shapes including rectangular, elliptical, sinusoidal, trapezium, and hybrid shapes that combine two cross sectional shapes into one

· Eighteen different custom centerline equations for the fabric yarns and unidirectional tows

· Two mesh schemes with the option of coincident nodes at the cross-over locations

· Assign each yarn / tow to a separate part ID or assign all warp and all fill yarns / tows to the same part ID

· Automatic writing of material, damping, and hourglass keycards to the input file

· Write out only the warp data, or fill data, or both warp and fill data to the LS-DYNA® input file

· Create multiple layers of fabric or unidirectional plies

· Graphical equation plotter to preview centerline equations

· High quality finite element mesh comprised of hexahedral (solid) elements

· Nodal and element data written to a separate input file to keep the size of the main input file small, so that it can be opened and edited  using standard text editors

Nilakantan Composites