Material Design with DIGIMAT

DIGIMAT applies the systematics of „top-down“ modeling which means that continuum mechanics based methods are used to describe the material microstructure. Among these mathematical mean field homogenization is implemented in the software (digimat-MF). Also a generator for arbitrary material microstructures can be found (digimat-FE). The stochastic models produced with this tool can be homogenized in a subsequent step using an external FE solver like ANSYS.

The application of homogenization methods can be found in different areas. Material designers are expert users and seek for a deep understanding of interactions within the material and their influence on the overall properties. Therefore they need DIGIMAT in the context of basic research and apply it as a virtual material laboratory. But DIGIMAT also offers homogenization as an easy to use tool for the everyday application in the engineering business. In this context the influence of the processing on the material properties as varied by changes in the local microstructure of parts is considered.
For fiber reinforced plastic parts which are produced by injection molding DIGIMAT enables the use of constitutional laws especially suited for this complex material. Such descriptions are not only sensitive to the local orientation of the glass fibers in the part but also reflect the nonlinear strain rate or temperature dependent behavior of the material. In addition failure indicators can be defined and uses in ANSYS or LS-DYNA. The real strength of this approach is the automated coupling between results of injection molding simulations and the structural mechanics analysis. This way the influence of the processing of the part directly becomes visible in FEM calculations.
With the database approach as offered by digimat-MX the user can decide by himself whether he likes to be the materials expert or rather focuses on the design of the part by simply choosing materials models which are already prepared for him.