congress review

Compiled by:
Ian Symington
Technical Officer, NAFEMS

Our thanks go to everyone involved in making

the NAFEMS World Congress 2015 possible:
Review Committee
Nigel Knowles Vic Rollo Jim Wood

NAFEMS World Congress Team

Christine Bell Akiko Kondoh Larissa Oswald Ian Symington
Gabi Beller Robert Kostrzewa David Quinn Daniel Trojer
Olivia Bugaj Matt Ladzinski Georg Schöpf Heike Wankel
Jo Davenport Tim Morris Margot Simmons Andrew Wood
Elangovan Kariappan Albert Roger Oswald Paul Steward

Training Course Tutors

Tony Abbey Kamran Fouladi Louis Komzsik
Peter Bartholomew Jean-Francois Imbert Mark Norris
 Contents
Your Congress 2
A World of Engineering Simulation 3
Agenda 4
Key Messages - The Elevator Pitch 7
Focus on Keynotes 8
SPDM Conference Overview 10

Expert Angus Ramsay 12

View
Peter Bartholomew 13
Ron Simmons 14

Working High Performance Computing 15

Group Stochastics 16
View
Analysis Management 17
Composites 17
Systems Modelling and Simulation 18

Session Analysis Management 19

Review
Optimization 20
Fracture & Fatigue 22
Nonlinear Approaches in Multibody Simulation Analysis 24
Multibody Simulation 26
Simulation Engineering meets Additive Manufacturing 27

Congress Congress Highlights 28

Highlights A Primer on Model Based Systems Engineering 29
Models for Intralaminar Damage and Failure of Fiber Composites 34
Improvements of an Air-Liquid Interface In-Vitro Testing Method
for Inhalable Compounds Using CFD-Methods 43

NAFEMS Technical Working Groups & Regional Steering Committees 50

1
Your Congress
Albert Roger Oswald & Heike Wankel

F
rom the 21st to 24th of June 2015, San Diego played host to the engineering
analysis and simulation community, as we gathered for a packed agenda of
presentations, workshops, training courses, and, of course, social events.
Almost 600 attendees and more than 300 presentations meant that this was
always going to be one of the most technically rewarding and varied events
dedicated to analysis and simulation so far. From the ground-breaking
technologies at work in the BMW i8, to the challenges in space vehicle
development and everything in between, this was an outstanding event whatever
way you look at it.

But not everyone can attend, for one reason or another. And that’s where this
review comes in. It would of course be impossible to cover every session and
presentation in one publication, but what we have tried to do here is to give a
flavour of some of the sessions, an insight into the keynote presentations, and the
opinions of some of our working groups on the event. We have also asked several
acknowledged experts in various fields to give their views and opinions on some of
the sessions they managed to attend over the course of the Congress. Some of
these opinions vary, and some may outright contradict each other, but that’s the
beauty of an event like this – everyone involved comes away with something
different.

A guide to our various Technical Working Groups and Steering Committees can
also be found at the rear of this publication, which will help the reader to resolve
the acronyms that are used throughout. Much of the material that was presented
at the Congress, including presentations and technical papers, is available on our
website and can be accessed by NAFEMS members. We hope that this overview
publication will motivate you to take a look at these resources.

We are the engineering modelling, analysis and simulation community – NAFEMS

is proud to serve as your international association. We look forward to seeing you
at the NWC 2017 in Europe. ᔡ

On behalf of the NAFEMS World Congress Team

A World of
Engineering
Simulation
Costas Stavrinidis

T
he biennial NAFEMS World Congress was established in
order to strengthen worldwide alliances and working
relationships between industry, research institutes, and
academia in the area of engineering analysis and simulation.

This year’s congress was held in San Diego, USA from 21 – 24

June 2015 and as NAFEMS Chairman, I was delighted to
welcome more than 575 participants from 33 countries, making
this by far the largest NAFEMS event ever held outside Europe.
With over 300 technical presentations by leading experts, this
international forum provided a unique opportunity for
networking, knowledge exchange, sharing best practices and
discussing experiences of technical and scientific efforts.

NAFEMS has remained consistent in providing up-to-date

information on the latest technology in simulation, modelling &
analysis to the engineering community. The organization has
progressed over the years to take into account technology
changes, membership priorities, the market place, and the ways
in which engineers access information and progress their own
professional development. In line with this progression, we
successfully incorporated the 2nd international SPDM
conference into the NWC, as well as a special forum on additive
manufacturing and a focus on Systems Engineering.

Our thanks go to fantastic keynotes and invited speakers,

presenters, participants, exhibitors, NAFEMS working group
members, volunteer helpers and our tireless review committee
who helped make this congress a big success. A special mention
must also go to NAFEMS’ dedicated staff team, without whom
successful events such as this would not be possible.

With the Congress, we provide an opportunity to connect

different specialists and bring them together for the
advancement of analysis and simulation techniques and sharing
of respective experiences with software vendors and computer
providers for various engineering and scientific applications. We
would like to thank all of the exhibitors who presented their
latest hardware and software products related to CAE. We also
thank Dassault Simulia as Platinum Sponsor, Altair, Ansys and
Siemens as Gold Sponsors, Autodesk, MSC and Phoenix
Integration as Silver Sponsors, Esteco and Front End Analytics
(FEA) as SPDM sponsors, and our media partners Desktop
Engineering, Engineering.com, and MCADCAFÉ. ᔡ

3
 Agenda
Monday 22nd June
Welcome: Costas Stavrinidis, NAFEMS Chairman
Sponsor Presentation: Steve Levine, Dassault Systèmes, USA
Keynote Presentation: Ferdinand Dirschmid, BMW Group, GER
Invited Presentation: Dennis Nagy, BeyondCAE, USA
Keynote Presentation: Klaus-Jürgen Bathe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
SPDM Keynote: Peter Coleman, Airbus Operations Ltd., GBR
Invited Presentation: Georg Schöpf, Additive Fertigung Magazine, AUT

Session 1 13:30 - 15:15

1A CFD 1 1B Dynamics 1 1C Composites 1 1D Optimization 1 1E Multiphysics 1 -

Session 2 16:00 - 17:45

2A CFD 2 2B Dynamics 2 2C Composites 2 / 2D Fracture & Fatigue 1 2E Stochastics 1 -
Multiscale Uncertainty
Characterization

Tuesday 23rd June

Keynote Speaker: Zlatko Penzar, Continental AG, GER
Keynote Speaker: Ahmed Noor, Old Dominion University, USA
Invited Presentation: Costas Stavrinidis, European Space Agency, ESTEC, NED
Invited Presentation: Joe Walsh, intrinSIM, USA

Session 3 11:00 - 12:25

3A CFD 3 / Acoustics 3B Multibody Simulation 1 3C Composites 3 - Failure 3D Computational 3E Multiphysics 2
Structural Mechanics Computing 1

Session 4 13:30 - 14:55

4A Fracture & Fatigue 2 4B Multibody Simulation 2 4C Composites 4 - 4D Impact 2 / Life Sciences 4E Multiphysics 3
Fibre-Reinforced Computing 2

Session 5 15:35 - 17:00

5A Premium Sponsor: 5B Gold Sponsor: 5C Gold Sponsor: 5D Gold Sponsor: 5E Silver Sponsors:
Dassault Systèmes Ansys Siemens PLM Software Altair Engineering Autodesk
Simulia / MSC Software

Session 6 17:20 - 18:45

6A Premium Sponsor: 6B Multibody Simulation 3 6C Education & Training 6D CAE Driven 6E SPDM - Vendor 2 A
Dassault Systèmes Product Design 2 (in parallel with 6K)
Simulia

Wednesday 24th June

Keynote Speaker: Johan Jergeus, Volvo Car Corporation, SWE
Keynote Speaker: Walter Schmidt, Stryker Orthopaedics, USA
Invited Presentation: David Fitzsimmons, Airbus Operations, GER
Invited Presentation: Louis Komzsik, Siemens PLM, USA

Session 7 11:00 - 12:45

7A CFD 4 - Thermal 7B Materials 7C Optimization 2 7D Joints 1 7E Preprocessing 1
Uncertainty Management

Session 8 13:45 - 15:30

8A CFD 5 - V&V 8B Fracture & Fatigue 3 8C Optimization 3 8D Joints 2 8E Manufacturing 2
1F Systems Engineering 1 1G Emerging Issues 1H Analysis Management 1 1J Forum 3D-Printing / 1K SPDM 1 - Introduction
Electro Mechanical / Additive Manufacturing / Applications
Electro Thermal

2F Systems Engineering 2 2G Manufacturing 1 2H Analysis Management 2 2J Impact 1 2K SPDM 2 - Automotive

- V&V

3F High Performance 3G Business Issues 1 3H ASME V&V 3J Forum 3D-Printing / 3K SPDM - Vendor 1
Additive Manufacturing

4F High Performance 4G CAE Driven Product 4H Simulation Governance 4J Forum 3D-Printing / 4K SPDM - Aerospace
Design 1 Additive Manufacturing

5F Silver Sponsor: 5G High Performance 5H Stochastics 2 - 5J Forum 3D-Printing / 5K SPDM - Sponsors:

Phoenix Integration Computing 3 - Cloud Discussion Additive Manufacturing Esteco /
Front End Analytics

6F Systems Engineering 3 6G High Performance 6H Geometry Interaction 6J Forum 3D-Printing / 6K SPDM – Vendor 2 B
Computing 4 - Cloud with Simulation Additive Manufacturing (in parallel with 6E)

7F Stochastics 3 - 7G Analysis Management 7H Methods 1 7J Simulation & 7K SPDM - Democratising

Systems Engineering CAE with SPDM

8F Preprocessing 2 8G Methods 2 8H Dynamics 3 8J CAD Geometry 8K SPDM -

for Meshing Deploying SPDM
6
The Elevator Pitch
Key Messages
Rod Dreisbach

Summing-up an entire three day conference into one concise set of ‘take-aways’ is no easy task.
The key messages however, from my perspective, can be summarised as follows.

Major Trends in Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Simulation & Process Data
(MA&S) Management (SPDM)
• More physics-based simulation and more multiphysics • Simulation is becoming more
simulation (e.g., CFD, thermal, acoustics, multiphase flow, FSI) pervasive throughout the lifecycle of
a product and must be managed as a
• New methodology & standards for cross-functional concurrent
best business practice (Simulation
simulation and co-simulation; aligned with systems-
Governance)
engineering based initiatives
• Tighter integration of design,
• Multi-scale modeling of materials and simulations from
requirements, workflows, and
systems to sub-systems to components to nano-scale and back
change management
again
• A growing need for managing ‘smart’
• Advanced modeling, analysis, and optimization of advanced
cross-functional simulation models;
composite structures and damage assessments
must replace the current use of
• Tighter parametric CAD-CAE bi-directional capabilities, but independent, disparate functional
lacking fidelity models
• Use of additive manufacturing and 3D printing as • SPDM needs to manage all product
complementary tools for simulation V&V; advanced simulation simulation data including
of manufacturing processes spreadsheet and template-based
analyses (beyond FEA and CFD)
• Growth in Model-Based Simulation, Analysis, and Systems
Engineering; integration of 1D,2D and 3D cross-technology • Growing desire for SPDM to exploit
simulations; coupling analysis, optimization, build, test, and international standards-based
certification, with common visualizers (topics of the information sharing techniques (e.g.,
NAFEMS/INCOSE WG and the ASSESS Initiative) ISO, OSLC)
• New Paradigm: Thinking of the product as cross-dependent • Business Value (ROI) still seen as a
systems hurdle to smaller companies
• Increased reliance on virtual simulations to reduce amount of
physical testing

• Additive Manufacturing Simulation

• Analysis Management: V&V, Simulation Governance
• CFD
Conference Topics, Grouped by •
•
Composites
HPC
Number of Presentations Tier1 •
•
•
Methods: CSM, Emerging Issues, Education & Training
Multiphysics
SPDM

Tier2
• Dynamics Tier3 • Impact
•
•
•
•
Fatigue & Fracture
Multibody Simulation
Optimization
Systems Engineering
•
•
•
•
•
Joints
Life Sciences
Manufacturing
Preprocessing
Stochastics
7
 Focus on Keynotes
Tim Morris
P
lenary presentations, especially the keynotes, set
the scene for any conference. NAFEMS takes
great care when choosing who to invite, to ensure
that the audience receives a potent blend of inspiration,
thought-leadership and insight. So, expectations were
high. The speakers did not disappoint. Delegates
enjoyed a stimulating set of presentations from world
leading academics and industry leaders. They covered a
wide array of industry sectors, research themes and
commentary on current trends. What did we learn from
these presentations? What key messages did we take
away?
Shaping the Future
Many of the plenary speakers shared their thoughts
about what the future might hold. Ahmed Noor’s
presentation was dedicated to this theme, and gave an
amazing insight in to how cognitive computing could
impact on the world of engineering simulation,
explaining how we might expect a symbiotic
relationship to develop between humans and machines,
with mass customisation (made possible by 3D printing
and other techniques), artificial intelligence and hyper-
connectivity all playing their part. He commented that
we must decide how to react to the dramatic changes
that were coming our way. We have three choices: to
“deny” the changes exist, to “resist” them, or to “guide”
them. He urged us to take the third option and to be
amongst those that embraced and welcomed these
changes, echoing the earlier observation from Dennis
Nagy that “everyone present at the conference can help
to shape the future”.
Other views of the future included those from Joe
Walsh, who looked at the business trends and forecast
that “a revolution is coming” as the demand for
simulation will soon far outstrip the capacity that the
CAE community has to deliver it. Joe predicts that the
technology will change to ensure that simulation can
and will be exploited by the engineering population as a
whole, rather than an expert minority.
Meanwhile, Johan Jergeus explained how Volvo cars
had made huge advances in recent years in terms of
exploiting the vastly increased computing power and
improved algorithms, yet their thirst for more remained
strong: they want meshes that are still finer, and
improved methods of representing material behaviour
everyone present at the conference can help to shape the future.
8
and failure mechanisms, especially crack propagation.
Part of the response to this came from Louis Komzik,
who outlined his view of the future directions of
software development, including the potential for
meshless methods and new material models.
Materials
The various ways to represent the different
characteristics of material behaviour is invariably a
topic of great interest at NAFEMS events. At this World
Congress, there was a particular focus on the use of
more advanced materials. The keynote speakers took
the lead on this. Ferdinand Dirschmid was the first,
with his fascinating presentation about the BMW i8.
Simulation was one of a few key enablers that allowed a
radical concept car to be turned in to a production
vehicle in only 42 months! Along the way, many analysis
challenges needed to be met. The car is one of the first
applications of carbon fibre involving mass production
techniques. Also, non-traditional joining methods were
used. So it was welcome news to hear that BMW judged
that the predictions obtained were of a level of accuracy
that was not only adequate, but in many cases of a
comparable accuracy to analyses of traditional
materials.
Costas Stavrinidis picked up on a similar theme,
touching upon the use of advanced materials by the
space industry, and overcoming the difficulties
associated with representing the failure mechanisms of
composite materials. Walter Schmidt from Stryker
talked about a very different set of materials as he
guided us through various biomedical applications, and
was rightfully proud of the role that simulation has
played in helping his company to genuinely improve the
quality of life for many people.
Georg Schöpf introduced a different angle, explaining
the many new material possibilities that are emerging
through the use of additive manufacturing techniques,
whereas Johan Jergeus commented on the difficulties
that remain in terms of accurately predicting material
failure with more traditional materials, highlighting the
difficulties in predicting crack propagation under the
loading regimes associated with automotive crash
conditions.
 the demand for simulation will soon far
outstrip the capacity that the CAE
community has to deliver it.
Extended Range of Load Conditions
In fact, loading conditions was a subject that several of
the keynote speakers brought to our attention. One of
the ways that industry is exploiting the enhanced
simulation capabilities is to evaluate a much wider
range of load conditions – this was mentioned by Peter
Coleman from the perspective of the aeronautics
industry, Johan Jergeus on behalf of the automotive
industry (as they investigate additional load case in
their quest to eliminate complete car prototypes) and
Costas Stavrinidis, who spoke about the huge number
of load conditions that need to be considered for space
exploration, with the added complication that test can’t
be used to validate all space load conditions.
Additive Manufacturing
A topic that was new to NAFEMS World Congresses
was that of Additive Manufacturing (AM), with many
sessions dedicated to how this new technology and
simulation can be used together. This topic was
addressed comprehensively by Georg Schöpf who
started by reminding us that additive manufacturing is
actually nothing new – pottery and other such methods
of production have been doing a sort of “additive
manufacturing” for hundreds of years! Georg gave an
interesting overview of the different types of additive
manufacturing technologies, how they can be used to
enrich the use of engineering simulation (e.g. opening
up new possibilities in terms of designs that can be
manufacture, or allowing new blends of materials to be
utilised).
The topic was also touched upon by Ahmed Noor when
he spoke of the impact of “mass customisation” and by
Costas Stavrinidis who mentioned how the space
industry is already exploiting AM technology.
Increased model complexity
The increasing complexity of simulation models is
clearly apparent whenever we compare the
presentations from consecutive world congresses, and
this was apparent from many of the plenary talks,
including Johan Jergeus who spoke about the
increasing level of detail now being included in his
models, and Peter Coleman who described how
systems engineering and simulation approaches are
now converging.
Founding Principles
At the end of the day, we must not forget the essential
principles that underpin CAE usage, and the NAFEMS
organisation. We were reminded of these principles
through many of the presentations. Klaus-Jürgen
Bathe gave a remarkable insight in to some of the
fundamental technologies that are still being
researched and developed in many ambitious ways,
Louis Komzsik spoke about how the fruits of this new
research feed in to the software of today and tomorrow,
and Zlatko Penzar, talking about how he solved a
troublesome problem involving a very noisy automotive
pump, reminded us how an expert analyst must always
remember to still think as an engineer, and that well
thought through and clever simulations remain the
answer to many of today’s industrial problems.
However clever the software becomes, we will always
want, and need, a smart and resourceful engineer to
oversee things. ᔡ
9
 SPDM Conference
Overview
Mark Norris

F
erdinand Dirschmid highlighted the importance of
BMW’s CAE Bench SPDM solution during his
presentation of the virtual development of the
iconic BMW i8 hybrid petrol-electric carbon-fibre and
aluminium sports car. He stated that SPDM had
enabled the delivery of this vehicle in only 42 months,
managing all aspects of the 6000 major simulations
executed to develop and validate performance. This
may seem slow for a vehicle program until one
considers that the i8 embodies a new hybrid powertrain
concept as well as a carbon fibre reinforced plastic
body shell with aluminium alloy front and rear ends and
required new manufacturing processes and a new
factory. Ferdinand commented that BMW’s
homogenised CFRP failure model gave simulated
failure results within the scatter of the physical test
results. which required considerable engineering skill to start,
drive and repair en route.
Airbus is another leading company with SDM solutions
in place for a decade. Peter Coleman gave a
memorable presentation describing the programs
Airbus is leading to advance the state of the art of
SPDM conference
SPDM. He described the recent initiatives, TOICA, I had the honor of kicking- off the SPDM conference by
CONGA and SAVI (System Architecture for Virtual explaining that SPDM directly addresses the bottleneck
Integration), which extend the work done on of trained analyst capacity articulated by Joe Walsh.
CRESCENDO to demonstrate SPDM3.0: the Superimposing the growth in analysis capacity achieved
management of virtual experimentation across the by the SDM-based democratisation project at GKN
virtual enterprise. Peter explained that Airbus was driveline, we see that SPDM-enabled democratisation
promoting a cross-industry, standards-based approach directly delivers the growth in capacity that Joe
to collaborative virtual engineering because of the asserted that industry needs.
inherently heterogeneous nature of simulation
applications and xDM platforms running SDM
solutions. The proposed standard is named MoSSEC, A mature SPDM solution can enable even larger
Modelling and Simulation in a collaborative Systems increases in computational engineering throughput by
Engineering Context and particularly addresses the reducing time analysts spend on non-value-added
conceptual, up-front phase of product development. tasks and by enabling remote working. The reported
increase in fully trace-able computational engineering
Joe Walsh contrasted the business appetite for throughput by an SDM equipped Automotive OEM
simulation capacity with the actual growth being tracked Moore’s law, doubling every 18 months while
achieved worldwide. He stated that only 750,000 more recently BMW reported a doubling of program
engineers are using simulation applications out of a throughput over a four year period
potential market of 10 million engineers. Joe
articulated that it is a lack of trained analyst capacity Krista Comstock explained that a key driver of SPDM
which is preventing simulation being used more widely for Procter and Gamble is to provide a scaleable and
in industry, limiting growth to approximately 10% per cost effective solution to democratize simulation, where
annum. He made the analogy of the first motor cars possible, to non-experts. Her previous role was to

SPDM had enabled the delivery of this vehicle in only 42

months, managing all aspects of the 6000 major simulations
10 executed to develop and validate performance.

maintain two “democratised” simulation
applications for use by process development
engineers and she expects to be able to deliver
many more packaged solutions through the SPDM
solution P&G are collaborating with Dassault
Systèmes to build, now based on formal, verified
industrial requirements. She also concurred that
a wide range of skills are required to deliver an
SDM project and explained that she uses specialist
SDM IT skills from a small company local to her
facility in addition to partnering with the vendor of
long term developments.
In contrast, Marc Hertlein described his
background, Computer Science, and experience as
Project Manager for the migration of BMW’s CAE
Bench to the latest SPDM 2.0 from MSC software.
This required the migration of 90,000,000
metadata objects as well as links to 1.6 Petabytes
of data. Once SPDM usage reaches maturity in a
large engineering organisation the contribution of
the IT organisation becomes increasingly
important.
Rodrigo Britto-Maria of Embraer echoed Krista’s
comments about the need for specialist SDM
skills, which are difficult to find in Brazil. He also
reported that his remoteness from the vendor, 12
hours by aeroplane, was an issue for support of
his SPDM deployment.
Dr Akkela of Ashok Leyland submitted a paper on
the deployment of a configurable, SPDM 2.0
Solution to manage the simulation data and
processes of an Automotive (Truck) manufacturer
and the productivity gains achieved in fatigue life
prediction. This solution was delivered by a team
of three in one year. In contrast, Mr Yoon of
Hyundai Motors in Korea presented his project to
deploy a PLM-based solution at an Automotive
The reported increase in fully traceable computational
engineering throughput by an SDM equipped automotive
OEM tracked Moore’s law, doubling every 18 months
OEM for which he had to develop basic SDM
services, a web user interface acceptable to the
analysis community, in order to achieve
deployment. He also mentioned that his CAE
supplier provided specialist SDM services to
achieve this deployment. Mr Yoon stressed that
the automation of data acquisition and
management by SDM gave his engineers more
time to innovate and do computational
engineering.
Aaron Diachun of the Ford Motor Co. described the
challenges of simulating the increasingly complex
electro-mechanical systems installed in
passenger cars. He also concluded that
standards-based approaches are essential to
enable system simulations where modules are
supplied by a range of different companies. He
described the use of the FMI (Functional Mock-up
Interface) standard to enable the simulation of
modular automotive systems and received the
best-paper award.
Platforms for the Democratisation of Simulation
methods were a major theme of the conference.
Glenn Valine of GKN Driveline led the workshop on
Democratisation and presented his experience of
developing simulation applications suitable for
safe use by the design engineering community and
delivering them globally with security and
traceability on an SDM platform. Glenn reported
that they have “democratised” complex duty cycle
and fatigue life simulations to approximately four
times as many design engineers as their
population of analysts. Other vendors presenting
platforms for democratised Simulation delivery
included FEA with the EASA platform, ESTECO
with ModeFrontier, ESI with vDSS, Xogeny and
Comet Solutions. While these vendors stressed
how easy it can be to package simulation
applications for use over the web by non-
specialists, none of them explicitly addressed the
issue of governance – ensuring that the results
obtained by non-specialists are accurate or even
plausible. This is a topic which must be explicitly
addressed for wide adoption of democratised
solutions.
In the main conference, speakers emphasised the
importance of more sophisticated material
modelling to achieve accurate results now that
meshes are fully representative of geometry. In the
SPDM conference, Leo Kilfoy of MSC and Fairfull
of Granta described the key aspects of solutions to
manage material models for use in simulation. ᔡ
11
Expert View
Angus Ramsay
W
orld Congresses are in many ways showcases
of industries such as engineering simulation
where one can rub shoulders with software
developers, academic researchers and engineering
practitioners and find out about current, emerging and
future trends in the industry.
Prior to this year’s NWC, the last finite element world
congress I attended was in 1993 (Monte Carlo, Monaco)
which had the theme “FEM, Today and the Future” and I
recognised some familiar faces in this year’s NWC from
the event some 22 years ago. The theme this year was
“A World of Engineering Simulation” and whereas in
1993 most papers concentrated on conventional finite
element methods applied in the field of stress analysis,
this year’s conference embraced all engineering
simulation and included papers on much more than
just stress analysis.
As is the norm for such congresses the standard of the
work reported and the quality of the presentations
made were extremely high and provides confidence, for
those that need it, that the future of engineering
simulation is in good hands. Some presentations I
attended on joints were particularly impressive in the
way that simulation was being validated with measured
data and how failure criteria were being developed from
the resulting correlation.
One of the emerging themes from this year’s congress
is termed the ‘democratisation’ of engineering
simulation; handing the power of simulation from the
few (experts) to the many (engineering designers, for
example). I began my engineering career wanting to be
a designer but felt that I could not be effective without
understanding stress analysis and so went into a career
in finite element analysis. Over the last thirty years I
have developed sufficient expertise to be able to ensure
One of the emerging themes from this year’s congress is
termed the ‘democratisation’ of engineering simulation;
handing the power of simulation from the few.
12
that my FE models are producing reliable and accurate
results. Without this experience I could have been
responsible for a computer aided catastrophe like, for
example, the Sleipner Platform. It is of course the
issue that running a computer simulation needs a
different set of skills and experience than required for
designing a component or structure that makes the
goal of democratisation a difficult one to achieve in
practice. A good window on the world of practical
engineering simulation can be obtained through the
LinkedIn discussion groups – much can be learnt here
about the difficulties engineers face in applying
simulation technologies to their design problems.
It is interesting to note that one of the emerging
technologies from the 1993 congress was error
measures and adaptive mesh refinement,
complementary tools that are supposed to relieve the
engineer of having to be concerned about the issue of
discretization error and that might well today be seen
as tools towards the aim of democratisation of
engineering simulation. Of course error estimation is
part of the new subject of Simulation Governance which
played a prominent part in this year’s congress and is a
subject which all engineers (experienced analysts or
not) need to be considering whenever simulation
techniques are being applied.
My conclusion from this NWC is that the future of
engineering simulation is bright and is being led by
some very able and talented people and I would like to
congratulate NAFEMS for organising and running such
a successful event. I look forward to the emergence of
robust simulation tools for the engineering designer –
at which point I may move into engineering design - but
in the meantime I will continue to apply the ‘Napoleonic
Code’ to my simulation results, that is, Guilty until
proven Innocent! ᔡ

T
he trend towards ever more sophisticated
simulation that has been a feature of recent years
shows no sign of abating. This manifests itself in
the multi-level analysis with micro-, meso- and macro-
scale analysis of the composite structure within the
BMW i8, the full aircraft non-linear analysis of the
A350, numerous co-simulations and examples of
multiphysics simulation. Extrapolating, one can see
that the move to 3D modelling with several elements
used through the thickness of a shell will eventually
come to pass even if the modelling scale eventually
tends towards the material grain size.
There was one reason for caution, however, that
emerged from the Composites Failure session. Whilst
it may be possible to capture stresses to higher fidelity
at an ever more detailed level this is only of value if the
corresponding material allowables are available and
sufficiently precise. At present, of the many proposed
failure criterial none consistently produces results
within 10% of the test results throughout the failure
envelope and errors in excess of 50% are not
uncommon.
Meanwhile, the cross-disciplinary topics of Analysis
Management, Systems Engineering, and Simulation
Data Management continue to receive increasing levels
of attention. At present the Model Based System
Engineering tends to focus upon what Conrad Block
referred to as ‘the low hanging fruit’ of 1D simulation
where the SysML data models are in closest alignment
with the data required for simulation but more
comprehensive objectives are in mind. Meanwhile
Peter Coleman referred to a collaborative project in
Traditionally NAFEMS has been wary about the
wisdom of placing such tools in the hands of design
engineers with little knowledge or understanding of the
numerical techniques employed.
Expert View
Peter Bartholomew
which the data defining requirements and use key
values extracted from result sets to validate design
concepts, suggesting a close synergy exists between
the NAFEMS SMS and SDM activities.
Another trend to emerge from the SPDM conference
was the interest in democratisation as a means to
increase the role of simulation without the
corresponding requirement to find large number of
advanced simulation experts. Traditionally NAFEMS
members have been wary about the wisdom of placing
such tools in the hands of design engineers with little
knowledge or understanding of the numerical
techniques employed. GKN Driveline demonstrated
that this can be achieved within a carefully managed
and constrained envelope.
It may well be that the goals of democratisation will
pervade the whole of the engineering simulation world
as the subject continues to expand to embrace more
technical areas that could possibly be at the command
of a single individual. Few could understand the basic
numerical analysis initiatives that would be required to
exploit massively parallel HPCs whilst also
commanding insight into turbulence modelling,
electromagnetics and thermal modelling, material
characteristics and the various regulatory
environments. It was commented that the ‘old style’
papers in which a theoretical development was outlined
and followed by examples of industrial application had
largely disappeared. What exists now is far more a
collaborative venture between researchers, vendors
and, ultimately, the application engineer. ᔡ
13
Expert View
Ron Simmons

T
he theme of the NAFEMS World Congress 2015
was, “A World of Engineering Simulation”.
Simulation has been what finite element analysis
has been about since we have migrated from the
mathematical theory to digital computers. So, what
makes the simulation of 2015 different than what we
have come to think about when we say engineering
simulation? The major thread that went through the
plenary presentations and carried through the topical
sessions was multiphysics and co-simulation. It is
becoming more common to look at an analysis not as a
finite element analysis of a force applied to a
constrained model, but as a series of interactive
applied forces each affecting a model in its own way
and thus being a more realistic approach to how things
work in the real world.
There was a time not so very long ago where in a
congress you would have heard “FEA” in nearly every
presentation. In this congress, it was unusual to hear
that term. And when it was discussed, it was usually
one part of a whole analysis and rare to hear of it as an
end unto itself.
So, in 2015, the World of Simulation stands on the brink
of a shift in how analysis is approached. Co-simulation,
the simulation of a situation using two routines that run
through an analysis by trading off progression in a step-
wise manner is state of the art. But in the near future
true multiphysics, true co-simulation where two, or
more, solution sequences actually run in parallel will
be the next big step in our world of engineering
simulation.
Will the 2017 NAFEMS World Congress be crossing that
threshold, or at least be closing in on it? Co-simulation
is here to stay. In 2017 it will be more mainstream.
And the NAFEMS World Congress will then be, as it has
been in the past, the place to bring engineers and
engineering analysts together to share and exchange
information on this developing trend. ᔡ

the NAFEMS World Congress will then be, as it has

been in the past, the place to bring engineers and
engineering analysts together to share and exchange
information
14
 Working Group View
High Performance
Computing
I
first attended the NAFEMS World Congress in 2005
where I presented my work on interactive finite
element analysis - using one thousand processors
to solve a 3D elasticity problem with one million finite
elements in less than one second. Back then
processors only had one core and one million 3D
elements was too large a problem to solve using
commercial software. Memory was measured in
Megabytes, there were no GPU accelerators or many-
integrated core processors and Cloud Computing had
yet to be invented. I tried to persuade NAFEMS to set up
an HPC Working Group in 2006, 2007, 2008 and so on.
In 2011, I’d just about given up when I was invited by
Tim Morris to go ahead. NAFEMS members were finally
concerned about HPC, the driver being that all
workstations on the market had multicore processors
and GPU vendors were pushing their hardware for
general purpose computing. Runtime performance was
becoming a potential market differentiator for software
vendors.
Fast forward to NWC15 and the keynote talk by
Professor Klaus Jürgen Bathe at MIT reminded me why
the HPC Working Group are so motivated to promote
the adoption of HPC across the NAFEMS community.
Lee Margetts
University of Manchester
NAFEMS HPCWG - Chair
Professor Bathe commented that simulation today is
10,000x faster than in the 1980s. This growth is
impressive, but do we need to wait another 35 years for
a similar step change? In 2015, the largest HPC
systems are already more than 10,000x faster than the
desktop. This was highlighted by Professor Mark
Shephard who discussed solving problems with trillions
of degrees of freedom using millions of cores. Perhaps
more significant than this heroic effort is the growth in
Cloud Computing: the focus of the Birds of a Feather
session. The Cloud has the potential to bring HPC
capability to the whole supply chain, on a pay-for-use
basis, with SMEs having no need to invest in their own
infrastructure. There are issues with the Cloud and
there is a long way to go regarding HPC adoption, as
the NAFEMS survey “Computing Platforms for
Engineering Simulation” showed. Most NAFEMS
members use desktop computing for engineering
analysis, so I am sure HPC will be on the NAFEMS
agenda and a talking point at the World Congress for
many years to come. However, I hope it will one day
become as silly a concept as a NAFEMS Laptop
Working Group would be today, and our job will have
been done. ᔡ
15
Working Group View
Stochastics
Alexander Karl
Rolls-Royce
NAFEMS SWG
T
hree out of a total of 80 sessions at this year’s
NAFEMS World Congress were dedicated to the
subject area of Stochastics – the first two
covering both the Management and Characterization of
Uncertainty. Technical papers were presented on these
subject areas, on areas of application ranging from:
Advanced Gas Turbine Design, Vehicle Braking
Systems, Pressure Vessel Design, Fatigue Analysis,
Safety Critical Systems and Manufacturing Methods.
The third session on Stochastics was run as a panel-led
discussion session, with the central theme being a
review of the key messages derived from responses to
the Stochastics Challenge Problem that had been
launched at the 2013 Salzburg NAFEMS World
Congress by the NAFEMS Stochastics Working Group.
Additional challenge problems from SANDIA and NASA
were also discussed during the Panel Session; these
and the NAFEMS Challenge Problem are
complementary in terms of the level of complexity of
the engineering system at the heart of each problem,
but together they provoke a great deal of thought in
order to solve. It was discussed which type of challenge
problems are attractive to volunteers from industry and
academia and how the problem definition and
description should be setup to increase the take up on
future challenge problems.
The keynotes from Stryker and Simulia showed the
inherent link of stochastics and modelling and
simulation of biomechanical and bio-multi-physical
systems. It was impressive to see how much emphasis
Stryker put in gathering a representative statistical
database for individual optimization of implants by
simulation. It was stated that the statistical database
for modelling is a big success story and a valuable
asset of the company.
There are still key issues to be resolved around
properly dealing with the issues arising from
Uncertainty and a joint publication by NAFEMS
and ASME on V&V standards might be a good
16 opportunity to address this topic.
Gordon May Dietmar Vogt
Rolls-Royce Airbus Group
NAFEMS SWG Innovations
NAFEMS SWG
It was also evident that the importance of Uncertainty in
Engineering Analysis was a significant factor in other
sessions too: most notably the various sessions on
Verification and Validation in Analysis, Simulation
Governance and SPDM included a significant amount of
time discussing how accounting for the effects of
Uncertainty would have an important role in these
areas too.
Presentations at the SPDM sessions highlighted the
importance of managing uncertainty data as an integral
part of the whole Engineering Design Lifecycle and the
need of efficient sharing, synchronization & integration
of a distributed dataset, and the role of standards –
including MoSSEC.
The NAFEMS Analysis Management Working Group is
quite active in developing guidance and procedures
related to V&V. One of the main publications so far is an
adaptation of ISO 9001 Quality Standard to the
Simulation domain. The ASME V&V Committee has
published three existing standards in this area too:
• ASME V&V 10-2006 Guide for Verification and
Validation in Computational Solid Mechanics
• ASME V&V 20-2009 Standard for Verification and
Validation in Computational Fluid Dynamics and
Heat Transfer
• ASME V&V10.1-2012 An Illustration of the Concepts
of Verification and Validation in Computational Solid
Mechanics
There are still key issues to be resolved around properly
dealing with the issues arising from Uncertainty and a
joint publication by NAFEMS and ASME on V&V
standards might be a good opportunity to address this
topic. ᔡ
 Working Group View
Analysis Management
Chris Rogers
F
or NAFEMS World Congress 2015 the Analysis
Management Working Group (AMWG) hosted four
sessions. The general theme of the sessions was
Verification and Validation (V&V), with an emphasis on
validation. Strong V&V is essential to demonstrate and
measure the quality and applicability of any simulation;
in very loose terms code verification is considered
fundamentally a developer task; whereas calculation
verification and simulation validation are user tasks.
The four sessions comprised two papers sessions, a
discussion session and an ASME V&V 10 session. The
ASME Codes and Standards Committee V&V 10
Verification and Validation in Computational Mechanics
is one of four V&V committees; V&V 10 works closely
with AMWG with membership cross over. V&V 10 had
Working Group View
F
our out of a total of 80 sessions at this year’s
NAFEMS World Congress were dedicated to the
analysis of composite materials and structures
made of composites. 18 technical papers were
presented on topics ranging from failure prediction to
multi-scale analysis.
A highlight were the review presentations on
interlaminar damage and failure of fiber composites
which summarized the state of the art but also
emphasized the need for further development, code
verification and result validation. NAFEMS recognized
the importance of analysis tailored towards composites
in today’s world of simulation by inviting a keynote
speaker on the topic CFRP Lightweight Structure of the
BMW i8.
Jonathon Smith
free rein with respect to the structure and content of
the session; the session was well received and
informative. We expect to repeat the idea in 2017.
The discussion session had a panel of four leading
“experts” in V&V; they addressed two major topics: the
V&V 10 restricted view of validation and the fitting of
this view to ISO 9001. The restricted view of validation
requires validation to assessed against physical test or
experiment. ISO 9001 is the root International Standard
for quality management and is a requirement for many
industries worldwide. As V&V is a requirement of ISO
9001 it is necessary to fit the restricted view of
validation to the ISO requirement. This is one of the
current major tasks for AMWG. ᔡ
Composites
The program also included a short training course on
composite FEA. Further, a special edition of
Benchmark Magazine with 10 articles on composites
highlighted various aspects of composites analysis
including process simulation, the calculation of
effective material properties and damage analysis of
composite structures.
What makes the NAFEMS World Congress different
compared to the specialized conferences which focus
on composites such as the annual technical conference
of the American Society for Composites (ASC), the
International Conference for Composite Materials
(ICCM) or its European counterpart (ECCM) is inclusion
of other simulation rated topics, the immediate
participation of software vendors and the related
exhibition. ᔡ
17
Working Group View
Systems Modelling
and Simulation
Frank Popielas

T
his year’s NWC 2015 provided the first dedicated
focus on System Modeling and Simulation with
the addition of the “Systems Engineering”
sessions. We had 3 sessions with 12 papers. The
papers represented the diversity of the member base of
the Systems Modeling and Simulation Working Group
(SMSWG) with its wide ranging topics, from a general
discussion of the understanding of Model Based
Systems Engineering over requirements engineering,
trade-off studies, uncertainty investigation and
democratization of simulation to the virtual engineering
ecosystem and enabling infrastructure. Those papers
and following discussions showed clearly the need
across the industries to guide them. This was also
evident in all keynotes (like, “Potential of Cognitive
Computing for Engineering Analysis and Design” from
Ahmed Noor, ”Reflections on SPDM for Collaborative,
Multidisciplinary and Agile Aircraft Product
Development” from Peter Coleman and “The Changing
Role of Simulation” from Joe Walsh) and the
discussions in other sessions, like “Simulation
Governance” led by Keith Meintjes. We closed it out
with an open session of the SMSWG on “Simulation &
System Engineering: A roadmap for future
collaboration between NAFEMS and INCOSE”. This new
area, where we help drive strategic direction for
technology development and standards in the space of
complex engineering, bridging engineering analysis and
systems engineering from a product perspective while
at the same time providing directions for a modern
engineering ecosystem, will play a central role in
NAFEMS future activities. Some key phrases making /
made their way into our discussion already are: Model-
based Enterprise, Big Data and Internet-of-Things. A
new thinking started to take hold, and this was very
evident in this year’s NWC in San Diego. ᔡ

Some key phrases making / made their way into our

discussion already are: Model-based Enterprise, Big
Data and Internet-of-Things. A new thinking started to
take hold, and this was very evident in this year’s NWC
in San Diego.

18

Analysis Management
I
n the world of simulation, as the methods,
procedures, and software become more robust
giving rise to simulation becoming on par with
physical testing, the results of an analysis must be
assessed with not only the reduced data but a
statement of the fidelity of that data and its
significance. The question can be posed in a variety of
ways. Are the results an accurate representation of the
physical part or assembly being analyzed? What is the
confidence in the results? Are the results plausible?
Generating confidence in the results was addressed in
a variety of ways by the presenters in this session.
Simon Chetwyn of AWE presented two papers on a
method based, in part, on NAFEMS QSS publications.
This paper detailed the use of a Saaty method in a two-
step process that reviews an analysis by reducing a set
of attributes covering the competence of the preparer
and review process and the correctness of the specifics
entered into the model to a confidence rating using a
spreadsheet. The method described gives a consistent
review process that is easy to use, making the results
understandable and useful.
The other papers in the session approached the fidelity
of analysis results by addressing how simulation
modeling is being performed. These papers discussed
the increasing power of FE software and the associated
hardware on workstations, clusters, and the Cloud for
analysis and the emergence of CAD software to do
conceptual analysis which is often performed by people
who do not have the educational background or
experience to determine if the results are feasible.
Tobias Spruegel described a meta-model approach
where information based upon analytical equations,
results from previous numerical simulations, or
physical testing information on specific components is
Are the results an accurate representation of the physical
part or assembly being analyzed? What is the confidence
in the results? Are the results plausible?
Session Review
Session 1H
Ron Simmons
entered into a routine and then the inputs are varied to
the predictive model to describe a series of outcomes.
The results of the prediction routine are compared with
the results of the simulation to check for overall
plausibility. This approach validates that the
information used to build the simulation model is
entered correctly and that the overall approach is
sound.
Stephen Hendry detailed a three factor review process
to be used with modeling and analysis to determine if a
model accurately simulates a structure. The process
described is an in-depth in-situ method to be used as
part of the overall analysis routine. Eigenvalue model
stability analysis is used to determine virtual kinetic
energies and virtual strain energies to determine
information on the conditioning of elements. Element
displacement versus element distortion comparisons
are used to determine significant figure fidelity in the
model and results. Finally, using a conceptual
assembly consisting of an abstraction layer on a more
detailed layer of interest presents an overall
performance view of the model and results.
Based on how simulation is being approached and
performed it is imperative that the engineering
simulation community have a way of expressing a level
of confidence in the results of an analysis. As
simulation models have gotten more complex it has
become more difficult to identify inaccuracies or errors
in models and while there is no single solution to
determining if a model accurately simulates a
structure, there are a range of techniques that can help
express confidence in the model and results of the
analysis. These papers addressed some of the
questions of confidence in analysis from in-process
checks to final review and competencies. ᔡ
19
Session Review
Sessions 1D, 7C & 8C

Optimization
Peter Bartholomew

N
WC15 in San Diego saw 13 presentations on the
theme of optimization split across three sessions.
Whereas in the past one might have expected a
substantial proportion of presentations being from the
Aerospace industry it was noticeable that the area of
greatest contribution has shifted to Automotive with
almost all the presentations coming from that sector.
Right from the start with the first presentation in Session
1D on ‘Composite Materials Multi-Objective Optimization
of a Formula 1 Front Wing’ the complex mix of
Multidisciplinary design or even Multiphysics design was
apparent. The balance was towards structural
disciplines but there were three further presentations
with a CFD focus including a paper of the ‘Automated
Optimization Methodology applied to Car external
Aerodynamics’ within the first session.
This complexity in terms of the analysis performed was
also evident from the more structural design oriented
presentations including ‘Optimizing thermomechanical
strength of high-load turbochargers’ with its cyclic
thermal loading and fatigue calculation or ‘Virtualizing
the flexible Hose Design Process’ with its highly non-
linear statics analysis followed by Eigen-frequency
calculations used to model the dynamic excitation.
Perhaps it is this ever-increasing sophistication in terms
of the size and complexity of the design problems being
addressed that led to a strong vendor presence being
evident throughout the Optimization Sessions. In fact
eight of the presentations were from vendors, only two of
which were co-authored with end users (one of which
being Audi who co-authored the Dassault paper on high-
load turbochargers).
The primary contributor for two further presentations
‘Use of Swarm Intelligence for Topology Optimization of
Truss Structures with Stochastic loading conditions’ and
‘Automated Optimization Methodology applied to Car
external Aerodynamics for aero-drag Reduction’ were
Research Institutes. Several presentations represented
the on-going method developments in the area of design
optimization. Thirty years ago a typical design
optimization study would have been highly idealized and
based upon a single analysis code, augmented to produce
design sensitivities which would allow solutions to be
generated with a handful of function evaluations.
Since that time, as Lee Margetts suggested in his
thoughts on high performance computing, the basic
speed of computers has increased by a factor of 10000s,
whilst HPC provides orders of magnitude improvement
upon that. This progressive change made feasible the
use of direct search methods such as Genetic
Algorithms, with their requirement for 1000s of function
evaluations. In turn, the use of direct search methods
opened up the possibility of solving non-smooth design
problems based upon a far wider range of simulation
types. The down-side was that the direct search
methods tend not to scale well so the numbers of design
variables considered simultaneously dropped from
thousands to tens with screening techniques being
introduced to identify the main design drivers.
It is therefore interesting that the San Diego conference
saw the appearance of a number of presentations in
which adjoint sensitivity calculation was used, including
‘Leveraging the continuous Adjoint Method for Industrial-
scale Application’ and ‘Flow Topology Optimization of a
Turbo-charger’s inflow Duct’. Hybrid approaches were
also in which direct design space exploration was
followed by sensitivity-based approaches that exhibit
improved final convergence, one such being ‘Multi-
strategy intelligent Optimization Algorithm for

in the past one might have expected a substantial

proportion of presentations being from the Aerospace
industry it was noticeable that the area of greatest
contribution has shifted to Automotive with almost
20 all the presentations coming from that sector
Another innovation over the
past 20 years has been the
rise of Process Integration
systems that figured in
many of the presentations
already mentioned here.

computationally-expensive CAE Simulations’. The

methods used for ‘Weld fatigue considerations in
structural Optimization’ were also gradient-based
using semi-analytic design sensitivities.

The paper on ‘The Optimization of semi-medium Bus

FMC ride and handling performance using Analytical
Target Cascading’ had its focus on the decomposition
of requirements and multi-level optimization. A non-
automotive presentation ‘A novel Topology Optimization
Approach applied for the Design of hollow Turbine
Blades’ used topology optimization to hollow out
turbine blades with Direct Metal Laser Sintering being
the proposed manufacturing technique.

Another innovation over the past 20 years has been the

rise of Process Integration systems that figured in
many of the presentations already mentioned here.
These allow multi-step processes to be orchestrated
and the optimization loops to be controlled. Their use
pervades much of the changing process landscape of
engineering simulation. Not only do they enable a
wider range of design optimization problems to be
addressed without laborious special-purpose scripting,
they assist stochastic simulation, the automation of
SPDM processes, Systems Engineering and
Democratization, so bringing together the aims and
objectives of a number of the NAFEMS Technical
Working Groups.

Finally, the importance of the changes now underway

to the competitiveness of our high technology
industries is evident from the investment cost being
committed to simulation and design optimization.
Some of the presentations indicated a willingness to
commit days of HPC computing effort to obtain the
desired result. ᔡ

21
 Session Review
Session 2D
Fracture & Fatigue
Ron Simmons
T
here were several sessions on fracture and
fatigue and the first session contained papers
that discussed stable ductile tearing, crack
growth, fatigue assessment in welded joints, and
rotating machinery fatigue. In each case, the paper
presented was a snapshot of what was being
investigated and how the approaches were being
developed to gain greater understanding of the
phenomena.
On discussing the simulation of a stable ductile tearing
situation in finite element analysis Emily Hutchison of
TWI presented the opening paper of the session
describing the use of re-mesh techniques coupled with
nodal release. The main premise was that at a crack
tip the measure of stress triaxality can be considered as
a constraint and this paper presented using the T-
stress to quantify the constraint in the simulation of
crack growth. A procedure was discussed that
consisted of a set of steps to simulate the constraint
based stable ductile crack growth. It consisted of
calculating the T-stress at each node of a crack front;
calculating the crack driving force (J-integral) at each
node along the crack front; calculating the amount of
crack extension based upon the R-curve coefficients
and the J-integral value; re-meshing the model to
incorporate a new crack front shape; and finally
adjusting the boundary conditions so that the nodes in
a new crack front are released to simulate tearing
based upon a two-step process wherein first the
applied displacement is held constant while the nodes
for the first tearing increment are released and the
second step applies an arbitrary displacement in order
to calculate the displacement for the next tearing
increment. The process is repeated over several tearing
increments until there is a nearly flat constraint based
R-curve along the crack front such that for small
increases in applied J-integral values there are
significant increases in crack extension which
demonstrates unstable crack growth. Further work is
to incorporate Q-stress as the constant parameter
since it may be more applicable to provide better crack
growth predictions since it will incorporate the effect of
22
plastic wake on the crack tip stresses.
In one approach to dealing with crack growth to
address structural integrity a collaborative effort
between EDF Energy and the University of Manchester
described using XFEM in an evaluation of advanced
gas-cooled reactor (AGR) Nuclear Power Plants. It was
discussed that AGR cores are composed of thousands
of graphite bricks and after years of service the
irradiation and temperature gradually modify the
microstructure and stresses in the bricks which leads
to crack initiation and propagation. In order to
determine the lifetime of the cores it is necessary to
understand the integrity and performance of the cores
due to the cracking of the blocks. The paper discussed
the two-step process that was used to evaluate the core
structural performance with the crack growth. First,
the Incremental crack growth of a single block was
evaluated using XFEM with the energetic criteria
relevant for quasi brittle materials and the direction of
propagation along the crack front was based upon the
maximum hoop stress and length of propagation for
each step of the calculation which is dependent upon
the value of strain energy release rate along the crack
front. Using the results of the individual block, a whole
core model was statistically modeled to determine the
performance of the core with the cracked blocks to
determine the plant effective lifetime.
Another paper that discussed the XFEM approach was
presented by Ismael Rivero Arevalo of Airbus to discuss
the application to crack growth correlation in
aeronautical structures. The paper discussed that
classical analytical methods of determining crack
growth in complex systems have high computational
costs along with introducing conservatisms that
penalize designs in terms of weight, cost, and
maintainability and that XFEM is one of the numerical
methodologies appearing as an alternative with lower
costs and the ability to evaluate complex systems that
can produce acceptable assessments in fatigue and
damage tolerance analyses. The paper went through a
series of benchmark tests to demonstrate that the
procedure resulted in results that were comparable
with the expected results. From the benchmark tests
the paper went on to discuss five cases with more
complex geometries: A lug, a hollow cylinder, a solid
shaft, an oblique crack under a uniaxial load, and a
complex structural aircraft fitting. The results of the
analyses were consistent with the physical parts where
crack growth was observed. The authors reported that
using XFEM presented advantages over traditional finite
element modeling since the crack path does not have
to be specified since the propagation is not tied to
element boundaries in a mesh, it is a reliable method
for evaluating stress intensity factors and in predicting
crack growth, and produces high accuracy results
which simulate crack path in complex problems
faithfully. Further investigations are to introduce
complex stress sequences representing actual spectra
during operational life and the introduction of crack
retardation by simulating local crack tip yielding.
In using classical finite element methods, Hugo Bottino
Di Gioia Almeida presented a comparison of different
local approaches for fatigue assessment. The paper
discussed analysis of subsea equipment in the gas and
oil industry where stress concentrations at geometric
discontinuities such as welded joints is directly related
to the initiation and propagation of cracks under cyclic
loading impacting fatigue life. Two alternate
approaches in the assessment of a welded joint to the
global stress method were considered for this study,
the Hot Spot (HS) method and the Notch Stress (NS)
method. The HS method considers the element type,
mesh refinement, element order, and integration
points. In the HS method, the nonlinear stress peak is
not used since only the geometric discontinuity is
modeled creating a singular point in the stress
concentration region. The NS method objective is to
calculate the effective notch stress generated by a local
notch root assuming a linear elastic behavior. The
greatest challenge to this method is to correctly model
the realistic behavior in the vicinity of the notch. And
due to the nature of the modeling near the notch it is
recommended that second order 3D solid elements be
used in the analysis. Applying both methods to a
model, the HS method results were more conservative.
The conclusions drawn by the authors based upon the
two approaches were that the HS method gives a
simpler approach by not detailing the notch
representation and allowing coarser meshes compared
to the NS method; a mesh convergence study is
recommended for the HS method; the NS method
requires the notch details to be modeled which greatly
increases the number of elements in the model,
submodeling techniques; the NS approach allows a
post-welding notch sensibility study during the design
stage to accomplish fatigue life criteria while with the
HS method the notch detail is assumed to be included
in the S-N hot spot curve and only general changes,
such as plate thickness increase, are possible.
To close out the session Frederic Kihm of HBM-nCode
provided an update for the on-going study on fatigue life
from Sine-On-Random excitations. As was described,
Sine-On-Random occurs with rotating machinery when
the typical mechanical vibration is made up of sine
tones superimposed upon background noise. The paper
stated that components mounted on rotating machinery
must be designed to survive these vibration levels over
the entire service life. As described, the standard
method of estimating fatigue life from a Sine-On-
Random excitation is to perform a transient analysis
using a time domain realization of the required PSD
and harmonic tones. This approach is very demanding
of CPU time. The presentation discussed a spectral
domain approach which offers an advantage over time
domain when there is limited stress time history data
or when computation times are prohibitive. Using the
method presented, the aim is to find a statistically
derived, rainflow-like distribution of cycles
corresponding to the stress PSD and sine tones. Using
the derived rainflow distributions a robust method of
deriving fatigue estimates was presented. Included in
the presentation was a case study using the method to
access the fatigue damage on a component attached to
a helicopter fuselage. ᔡ
23
Session Review
Session 4B
Nonlinear Approaches
in Multibody Simulation
Analysis
Ron Simmons
T
he second session of Multibody (MB) simulation
took the topic into the nonlinear realm. While MB
simulations in the linear range are parallel single
applications, in the nonlinear areas Newton time step
advancing schemes must be addressed for different
processes each of which have their own manner of
producing the time steps. An overall referee program
or algorithm must be employed to synchronize the
processes so that they advance in step with each other.
The first paper of the session presented by Mario Felice
of Ford in collaboration with Dassault Systems provided
an evaluation of a small pickup truck powertrain
refinement analysis with respect to NVH using a system
level simulation methodology. The proposal was to
incorporate component level nonlinear dynamics
through the use of a nonlinear finite element analysis
routine in combination with MB simulation to assess
powertrain system level dynamic effects for NVH.
Two approaches were considered for this analysis. In
the first approach, the output forces and moments
generated by the finite element analysis using a fully
modeled leaf spring system are used in the MB
dynamics software to build a beam model of the
springs. The beam element model is then correlated
with the nonlinear FEA model for use for the final
analysis. The downside of this technique is that there
are details that are not included in the dynamics beam
model and must either be accepted or accounted for in
Frederic Cugnon of Samtech addressed the situation where
when using multibody simulation to couple nonlinear
analysis and multibody dynamics large models are
24 encountered with resultant high computational costs.
the final analysis runs. In the second approach, real-
time cosimulation between the finite element analysis
and the MB dynamics software is run. The process for
attaching the model requires special setup between the
FEA solution and the dynamics MB runs. Using this
technique it is possible to accurately predict the forces
at the attachment points between the leaf springs and
the vehicle chassis. This method of using the local
suspension behavior can be evaluated directly as part
of the total powertrain response for NVH using a single
MB simulation approach.
Frederic Cugnon of Samtech addressed the situation
where when using MB simulation to couple nonlinear
analysis and MB dynamics large models are
encountered with resultant high computational costs.
The paper addressed that typically when resolving large
models explicit solvers are used but that time
interaction can be efficiently performed using implicit
methods and by using a multi-model solver
computational time can be saved. The presentation
focused on one particular solver solution but indicated
that other solvers with similar capabilities could be
adapted to use the methods presented.
It was presented that a strongly coupled approach using
a master MB dynamics model and a slave nonlinear
finite element model means that MB simulations can
be run efficiently. This method strongly couples the
master and slave models where the internal and
 a strongly coupled approach using
a master multibody dynamics
model and a slave nonlinear finite
element model that multibody
simulations can be run efficiently

connection degrees of freedom for each model are
split, the time steps and iterations are synchronized
allowing the building of coupled solutions between the
codes, and at each iteration all models build their own
iteration matrix and residual vector. Using the software
described, the coupling algorithm based upon the
exchanges at the integration matrix and residual vector
level works well allowing the user to switch from static
to kinematic and finally to dynamic analysis in a single
coupled solution. Additionally, within the steps it was
shown that specific multiprocessors can be directed to
perform specific steps that more efficiently handle that
particular step or steps in parallel. In order to
demonstrate this method, two analysis model results
cases were presented that demonstrated that there
was notable speed up in analysis times.
In a paper addressing large MB simulation models,
Motoharu Tateishi of MSC Software described a method
of using an algorithm for performing cosimulation of
MB and finite element models. The algorithm
described in the paper uses interface variable coupling
and basically runs a three part process where several
software solutions are used for the analysis; one MB
simulation, multiple finite element simulations, and
one glue process. In this case the glue code acts as an
executive routine that directs the flow of data between
the MB and finite element codes. The cosimulation is
started by launching the glue code which prompts the
user to start the MB and finite element applications.
The algorithm implements a continuous
communication of both the MB and finite element
codes until a solution is realized It was described that
cosimulation in this manner is a time consuming
operation where two areas needed improvement;
spatial domain and time domain speed performance.
To enhance the spatial domain speed performance
several parallelization routines are employed and to
improve time domain performance adaptive stiffness
update logic is employed.
In the final paper of the session a master-slave
cosimulation technique was discussed by Giancarlo
Conti of Siemens Software where the coupling between
solvers is achieved at the iteration level and each solver
uses its own integrator but only one master code is
used to solve the Newton iterations. Using this
technique, the master code responsible for solving the
nonlinear equations of the entire system continues
working with the coupled iterations until both solvers
satisfy their won solution tolerances and convergence
is achieved. This technique is described as having
greatly improved numerical stability and a reduced
computation time when compared to a staggered
cosimulation routine. The bulk of the paper described
an analysis run on a stamping press tool that uses
contact surfaces to predict the dynamic stress
distribution in the stamped parts. ᔡ

25
Session Review
Session 3B
Multibody Simulation
Ron Simmons
M
ultibody (MB) simulations were addressed in this
session to cover a range of conditions over what
is generally the linear or stable range. Each
paper addressed a different need for MB simulation and
at the same time each expressed a need for higher
fidelity analysis for complex connected systems. At
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) it was to reduce the cost
associated with complex and time consuming physical
testing. Thales Alenia Space used the method to perform
simulations on a structure that by its nature could not be
physically tested on Earth as its deployment and use are
in zero-G and the near vacuum of space. The paper
presented by the University of Bristol and Siemens
presented a methodology on coupling unsteady
aerodynamic loads with flexible bodies to determine the
effects of short term loads on the aircraft structure. All
different rationales for the application of MB simulation,
but all using it to define a synergistic solution to their
particular problem. And each of the papers presented
validation of their methods by comparing their results of
the analysis with physical testing and actual in-service
performance.
The paper presented from JLR discussed the drivers
behind using MB analysis in the towing capacity of
automotive vehicles. Key in this were competition in the
automotive industry where the company is introducing
new models and how the shortened development times
affect how design development is approached to assure
that the customer is provided with a vehicle that meets
their expectations and to comply with regulated safety
specifications. The presentation covered the situation
where the important towing capacity of the vehicle is
virtually tested which shortens the physical testing
phase. Initial testing was performed using a bike carrier
attached to the tow bar and comparing the computed
results with physical testing. Once good correlation
between virtual and physical testing was developed the
program was expanded to cover trailer towing of the
vehicle. MB analysis is used at JLR to integrate the
platform system by combining in the analysis the
suspension components, tires, road surface conditions,
and overall body structure considerations from normal
modes and static modeling.
Thales Alenia Space (TAS) added to the session with a
discussion of applying MB analysis for a two axis oriented
satellite solar array. While JLR uses MB to simulate
towing capacity to reduce the actual physical testing
required TAS uses MB to simulate flight data
where physical testing on the ground is not
possible. While some ground testing to validate
the methods applied is done deployment tests
26
on Earth are not representative of the dynamics of the
deployment of large arrays because of air effects and the
difference of zero-G systems which add large
perturbations to the analysis and it is not possible to
deploy such large zero-G structures on the ground in two
or three directions. The importance of having a high
fidelity simulation is vital to the design of the solar arrays
since deployment of the structure is critical, the failure of
a successful activation can lead to mission and satellite
loss while a poorly controlled deployment can lead to
destructive shock loading.
Previously, TAS has used 1D models to simulate the
deployment and tracking since the drive mechanisms
where one axis systems. In order to more accurately
follow the solar alignment to maximize power generated
by the arrays TAS has developed a two axis steerable
mechanism to rotate around the longitudinal axis and tilt
the panels for more accurate solar tracking. MB
simulation results that tracked the two axis rotation and
tilt were tested in a partial array zero-G test rig to
determine the correlation of predicted test results with
the analysis results. The tracking of the MB analysis
showed excellent correlation with the test results. The
results of the modeling were compared with a real time
satellite in orbit and the two were very accurate. With the
MB approach antisymetric bending, sliding, and torsional
modes effects were fully taken into account while they
had previously been neglected in the previous 1D models.
A collaborative research paper presented by the
University of Bristol and Siemens PLM software did an
investigation of the gust loading on an aircraft structure.
MB simulations for aircraft loads is a subject of interest
since there are many applications where the flexible body
structure undergoes simultaneous different loadings
such as wind gusts and landings. Many of these loadings
can be considered nonlinear in nature and can
implement the use of active structures. The authors
discussed that the doublet lattice method with
corrections based upon CFD and rest tests is the
traditional method of predicting aerodynamic aircraft
loads. Since the gusts contain short duration and
impulse loading this results in a high frequency response
that requires the unsteady effects of aerodynamics be
taken into account. MB simulations are by nature time-
domain simulations and the unsteady aerodynamics is a
frequency domain response. This has required that the
unsteady aerodynamics be approximated to be used in a
time-domain solution. The paper presented the
application of Roger’s Rational Fraction Approximation
method to the unsteady aerodynamic loads in a time-
domain MB solver. ᔡ
 Session Review
Simulation Engineering
meets Additive
Manufacturing
Georg Schöpf

T
he 2015 World Congress provided the platform for
the 1st dedicated NAFEMS forum on Additive
Manufacturing (AM). The main industries
represented in the sessions were automotive, aerospace
and medical. Presenters from a range of companies and
several areas of expertise talked about their experiences
with additive manufactured parts and challenges involved
in simulating the additive build process.

Walter Schmidt, senior engineering manager of

modelling and simulation at Stryker Orthopedics (US)
works on the development of additive manufactured hip-
prosthetics. Walter discussed the robustness of the AM
process “The greatest difficulty is that materials differ
depending on the AM-method and built-parameters. Also
the biggest additive manufacturing machines worldwide
there are differences in material parameters depending
based on the fused deposition modelling method.
on part orientation in the building-space of the machine”.
Vlastimil Kunc of the Materials Science Division of the
Another key challenge that came out of the sessions was
Oak Ridge National Laboratory discussed how simulation
the lack of valid and reliable material models for
can address this issue, “We actually learn, how the
simulation of AM parts. AM technology can take
material behaves depend on building-parameters and
advantage of materials with added value (composites and
AM-method. Normally we need to simulate the building
filled materials) and there is a need to provide reliable
process first to get reasonably reliable results for the part
models to represent these materials in the simulation
itself” Vlastimil together with his colleagues at
environment.
Cincinnati Machine Inc. and the software company
Alphastar Corp built an electric Shelby Cobra car with a
More communication and collaboration is needed.
completely additive manufactured body. Cincinnati builds
Additive manufacturing technology has been developing
rapidly and there is a clear need to get more input from
the simulation community. It is necessary to document
AM methods including the related build-parameters in
order to increase the probability of producing a
successful product. Designers and simulation engineers
are encouraged to formulate their requirements and
communicate them to the suppliers of machines and
materials. It is also essential that machine
manufacturers disclose their latest developments and
coordinate in the development with simulation engineers.
Discussion and interaction is needed to get the
required information. ᔡ

27
Congress Highlights
A selection of noteworthy papers from this year’s Congress.

Ian Symington

T
he first conference paper I have chosen to
highlight is ‘A Primer on Model Based
Systems Engineering’ by Bill Brothers of
Dassault Systèmes. The origins of NAFEMS began
with domain specific tools. The vast majority of our
members are familiar with CFD and FEA codes
and are aware of the assumptions and limitations
of these tools. With the formation of the Systems
Modelling and Simulation Working group in 2013,
NAFEMS started to interact with a new set of
engineers…the systems engineers.
When integrating two distinct groups it is essential
that we are all talking the same language and that
we all have an understanding of where we fit into
the design process. Bill’s paper is an excellent
introduction to the traditional NAFEMS audience
on the role of Model Based Systems Engineering.
The second paper that has been included is ‘Models for
Intralaminar Damage and Failure of Fiber Composites – A
Review’ by Prof Klaus Rohwer of DLR. In this paper Rohwer
reviews failure and progressive failure models for laminated
continuous fiber-reinforce polymer composites subjected to
quasi-static loading. This paper provides an excellent round
up of the different approaches that are available and provides
comprehensive references to allow the reader to explore this
area further.
Finally the winner of the ‘Most Innovative Paper Award’,
‘Improvements of an Air-Liquid Interface In-Vitro Testing
Method for Inhalable Compounds Using CFD-Methods’ by Dr
C Brodbeck of the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI is reproduced.
The paper use computational fluid dynamics to investigate
the most effective technique for exposing cells with the goal
being to develop a general application that is suitable for all
kinds of airborne materials. ᔡ

When integrating two distinct groups it is essential

that we are all talking the same language
28
 Congress Highlights
A Primer on Model
Based Systems Engineering
Bill Brothers - Dassault Systèmes SIMULIA Corp.
Introduction
This paper presents an introduction to Model Based
Systems Engineering (MBSE) for finite element
analysts. The finite element (FE) analyst can play a
significant role within systems engineering, but it is
necessary to first understand MBSE before the role can
be leveraged.
Many companies are beginning to understand the value
of MBSE and are enhancing their systems engineering
capabilities to achieve greater project success. One
study from Eric Honour [1] shows average project cost
overruns of 50% are eliminated with the increased
application of System Engineering (SE) effort. This
same study revealed that schedule overruns are
reduced from an average of 80% to 0% with increased
SE effort. In both cases the variability about the average
reduces with increased SE effort.
Another study done between Carnegie Mellon
University, NDIA, and CEI [2] finds a strong statistical
correlation between systems engineering capabilities
and project performance. Furthermore, the study
reveals that the correlation between systems
engineering capability and project performance
becomes stronger with increasing project complexity.
As products become more complex, the need for
systems engineering capability also increases.
With the business benefits of MBSE becoming
apparent, it is a matter of time before finite element
analysts will be expected to know the basics of MBSE
and be able to effectively contribute to a systems
engineering process.
MBSE vs. SE vs. System Models
Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is the
formalized application of modelling to support system
requirements, design, analysis, verification and
validation activities beginning in the conceptual design
Member of the NAFEMS SMSWG
phase and continuing throughout development and
later life cycle phases (INCOSE-TP-2004-004-02,
Version 2.03, September 2007). The emphasis is on
leveraging a virtual representation of a system to
support the various engineering and business activities
through a product lifecycle.
Systems engineering is a discipline that ensures that a
system of interest meets all internal and external
requirements through the definition and application of
engineering processes. This is challenging when you
consider that a customers requirements may include
vagaries such as how a surgical implement my feel in
the hands of a surgeon, quantitative requirements such
as cost, and statistical variances of risk and warranty.
In addition to the customer requirements are the
internal requirements necessary to achieve business
objectives such as margin and delivery. This
combination results in a necessary consideration of the
integration of many diverse disciplines. The systems
engineer has visibility over all aspects of a program
with responsibility for the integration of a diverse set of
domains.
Systems models, on the other hand, are a combination
of behavioural expressions which when considered
independently cannot predict the behaviour of the
whole. A system example is the calculation of vehicle
fuel economy by examining the engine, transmission,
driveline, and electronic controls. It is impossible to
calculate the fuel economy of a vehicle by considering
the behaviour of each of the components independently.
This becomes apparent when you consider that the
electronic controls monitors many variables from the
engine and powertrain to adjust various conditions with
how the engine and transmission operate, such as RPM
and current gear selection. It is only when all the
relevant behavioural expressions are considered
together that we can calculate the system behaviour to
predict fuel economy.
29
 The RFLP approach to systems engineering
The RFLP approach to systems engineering is an
organized approach which utilizes a hierarchical
decomposition of high level requirements into
successive levels of model fidelity. Requirements come
from the customer, knowledge of the industry, and
internal business objectives. Requirements are always
changing, and as such need to be actively managed and
propagated continuously through the program.
As requirements are defined, they are broken up into a
functional decomposition of the product or program.
The functional specification designates what a
particular product must do to satisfy the requirements.
There is no definition at the functional level as to how a
function is to be accomplished, only that it must be so
in order to meet the program requirements. The goal at
the functional level is to delay design decisions since
imposing them too early will unnecessarily constrict
the space of possible solutions. You would not want to
assume a battery for a power source when the type and
amount of power is unknown. Solar or gas may fulfil
the requirements better.
Typically a systems engineer will decompose the
requirements into functions and delegate these to the
different engineering and business domains tasked
with supporting the program.
The decomposed functions are allocated to the various
engineering domains to create and apply logical models
of behavioural expressions. Logical models define how
the functions are carried out, but don’t yet describe the
physical characteristics of how the product is made. A
logical model of a battery, for example, may include
expressions describing voltage as a function of
remaining capacity, battery chemistry, current delivery,
mass, and battery life, but it would not include the
physical geometry of the battery itself. The logical
models are mathematical expressions of a particular
behaviour.
An experienced finite element analyst will construct
and consult a free body diagram prior to creating a
Figure 1: The systems engineering “V” proposes a
hierarchical decomposition of a system and subsequent
verification and validation activity. In real life, however,
these are not always done sequentially.
30
finite element model. The free body diagram is a logical
representation of a mechanical system, thus finite
element analysts already make use of logical models
prior to the construction of the physical level finite
element model.
The lowest modelling level within the RFLP approach is
the physical level. At the physical level, the geometry of
each component in an assembly is defined using CAD,
the behaviour is captured using finite element analysis,
and other domains are similarly detailed as required.
Finite element analysis is the physical description of
the part or assembly revealing how a product is
constructed and its response to imposed conditions.
Often the RFLP model is described as the systems
engineering V as shown below in figure 1.
It can be interpreted from Figure 1 that RFLP is a
sequential series of activities that flow through
modelling, to product realization, and finally followed by
verification and validation activities. However, the real
world demands continuous execution of RFLP including
verification and validation occur simultaneously, and
thus the typical V diagram is in reality a filled triangle.
Almost every FEA engineer with significant industry
experience has been in the situation where the model
they were constructing was based on out of date
geometry or boundary conditions. With a robust
systems engineering capability, these updates are
pushed to the analyst as they occur, but all too often
the analyst ends up completing a model of questionable
relevance to the program. In a like manner, the analyst
may discover that design changes are necessary to
satisfy the requirements only to find that prototypes are
already being made. Both of these cases are symptoms
of a lack of systems engineering capability and are
caused when engineering disciplines operate in
isolated silos of expertise rather than in a mature and
collaborative systems engineering environment. A
need for collaboration can be observed when critical
project information is exchanged through informal or
accidental means rather than a formal platform
designed to track and capture this critical intellectual
property.
Figure 2: Here is a traditional engineering workflow
where domains work in isolation and rely on
knowing who to go to achieve integration.
 Figure 3: Here is a workflow relying on a collaboration
platform which integrates and synchronizes all of the
design domains. Critical IP that was communicated using
Ad-Hoc means is now stored and accumulated.
Although inefficiencies accumulate within the
engineering domains without systems engineering
capabilities, often the real problems are discovered
during the process of domain integration. The solutions
obtained in each domain may be optimal within the
domain, but may be incompatible with solutions in
other domains, thus the end result is a sub-optimal
system solution, or at worst, a collection of
incompatible domain solutions which result in a system
which fails to meet the requirements.
A systems engineering approach requires the use of a
systems model so that all domains can be integrated as
they are developed rather than as an afterthought.
Effective systems engineering does not rely on ad-hoc
collaboration and instead rely on specific processes and
tools to handle synchronization and collaboration.
The system model
The system model is a collection of behavioural
expressions as model elements that contain attributes
and are related to other behavioural expressions
through relationships.
A behavioural expression could encompass any manner
of things that support product functions and thus
requirements, such as a
• CAD geometry model,
• voltage model,
• finite element model,
• cost model,
• controls model,
• fluids model, etc.
It is the job of the systems engineer to ensure that
there are behavioural expressions to support the
complete functional decomposition of the
requirements.
Each behavioural expression may have a collection of
attributes. A finite element model may have a mesh
associated with it, or a voltage model for a battery may
follow a certain law depending on the battery chemistry.
Figure 4: This is a system model representation with model
elements (i.e. expressions of behaviours), attributes, and
relationships. Different relationships may be necessary
from independence to requiring co-simulation.
In CAD this could be a collection of dimensions and
tolerances.
The behavioural expressions may have different levels
of fidelity depending on the requirements of the model.
In general, the lowest fidelity model is selected which
meets the accuracy requirements of the system. For a
geometry expression an example of increasing fidelity
would be a design envelope, a sketch, a dimensioned
assembly, and an assembly composed of fully detailed
CAD parts with geometric tolerances.
Equally important to the creation of the behavioural
expressions are the definition and creation of the
relationships between the behavioural expressions.
The degree of coupling is also determined along with
identifying which expressions are related to another. In
some cases the coupling across engineering domains
is very tight – such as between the structural and fluid
domains within the deployment of a parachute. In other
cases, one domain independently drives another, such
as the definition of geometric tolerances on product
cost.
Once the system model is assembled it can be used to
predict those system behaviours, which cannot be
predicted by examining the behaviour elements in
isolation. This becomes a fundamental tool for the
systems designer.
The value of the system model
With a system model one can predict a set of outcomes
given a set of conditions. If the outcomes satisfy the
complete set of requirements, then the model
represents a successful system.
The real value of a system model is that it is a tool that
may be used to explore and understand the entire
response space of a system. The understanding of the
design space provides the decision support needed to
make system design decisions.
A finite element analysis could tell you if a particular
fastener will survive a load history, but the design
31
 question may be more along the lines of what
fastener should I chose? A rudimentary system
model could be constructed using a basic cost
table of fasteners related to a finite element
model within a process manager in order to
explore the response space allowing you to
answer the question, “which is the most cost
effective fastener that satisfies my load and
deflection requirements?” As behavioural
expressions are added the system solution
becomes more relevant to the product defined by
the requirements.
In a like manner, the question that should be
asked by product designers is “what tolerance do
I need on a particular dimension?” This question
can only be answered by examining tolerance
from a full requirements point of view including
cost and life as well as the more traditional stack
up requirements within an assembly. A systems
thinking approach will enable trade offs such as
material vs. tolerance for example.
The next step
Once the system response surface is known and
all domains are fully synchronized in a
collaborative environment one may be tempted to
believe they are done. A system optimum on the
response surface can be located to realize the
best possible product, which satisfies all the
requirements. However, there is yet another step
that can be taken in terms of systems engineering
capability.
A paper by Alex Van der Velden, David Fox, and
Jeff Haan [3], asserts that each behavioural
element within a systems model contains
uncertainty. The causes are various, but there is
always uncertainty within each element. The
uncertainties through each behavioural element
contribute to an overall uncertainty in the system
model, and thus there is an uncertainty band
about the system response space.
An optimal solution will often by found to be
coincident with some boundary on the allowable
design space. When the uncertainty is
incorporated in the system model, then it is
certain that if a manufacturing run is long enough
that some of the products will fail. To truly find the
system optimum, it is necessary to incorporate
the system model uncertainty within the decision
support process. The fully mature systems
engineering process will have quantified and
managed uncertainties within the system model.
32
Verification and Validation
A discussion of verification and validation will usually evoke an
animated discussion between experts in the field of systems
engineering as there is not a uniformly applied definition. The
two questions that are being asked with verification and
validation are, “am I solving it right?” and “am I solving the
right problem?” In finite element analysis, you can refine your
mesh until your solution converges so that you can confidently
solve the problem, but this will not tell you if you are solving
the correct problem.
An example illustrating the difference between verification
and validation is the answer to the question “Given that six
wolves catch six lambs in six minutes, how many wolves will
be needed to catch sixty lambs in sixty minutes?” Often,
following the pattern will solve this trick question – you could
verify that you solved the problem:
[6 wolves, 6 lambs,6 min.]*10 = [x wolves,60 lambs,60 min.]
6 wolves*10 = 60 wolves
You can verify that 6 times 10 is 60 and that it is correct, but it
doesn’t solve the problem since the initial equation is wrong.
Setting up the problem algebraically reveals that 6 wolves are
needed.
Physical validation of the solution is watching 6 wolves eat the
lambs. This is what we do when we validate an FEA result
against a physical test.
Virtual validation remains orthogonal to the original solution,
that is, the process used for validation must be independent of
the original. In our lambs example, virtual validation would
be a calibrated battle simulation of lambs vs. wolves. Virtual
validation of an FEA requires an alternative modelling
approach unrelated to FEA, such as handbook calculations.
Finally, to ensure that you are solving the right system you
would want to validate the requirements. In this case, that
would mean talking to the shepherd to determine that he
needs to know how many wolves are needed to eat his lambs.
In fact, you may find out that the shepherd doesn’t care about
the wolves’ appetites and he’s more interested in not losing
any lambs.
Summary
In summary, we have seen that the application of model
based systems engineering provides significant cost and time
benefits to industry, and we can expect that FEA as well as
other domains will be needed to participate in the process.
For systems engineering to be successful, requirements must
be carefully considered to ensure that all needed behavioural
expressions are present in the systems model. A systems
model will not be successful without actively incorporating
system requirements, which tend to be
continuously evolving. Furthermore,
these model elements must by
synchronized with functional definitions
and requirements through the application
of a collaboration environment.

A system model provides value as it is

used to provide decision support by the
exploration of the system response
surface through cause-effect space. This
requires that the model elements be
robust and execute quickly or that
different expressions of the system model
be solved simultaneously and collected to
discover the response space. Each
behavioural model element contributes to
the response space, and it is the
responsibility of the domain experts to Figure 5: A humorous look at Verification and Validation
calculate and define the accuracy of the
model elements that they select. For an
FEA model to be used within a system
model the uncertainty it contributes
should be calculated.

Finally, although there is some debate

over the definition of verification and
validation, the two questions that an FEA
analyst needs to keep in mind are “am I
solving it right?” and “am I solving the
right thing?”

References
1 Honour, Eric C. (2004). “Understanding the
Value of Systems Engineering.” Paper
presented at the 2004 INCOSE
International Symposium in Toulouse,
France
2 Elm, Joseph P., Dennis Goldenson, Khaled
El Emam, Nicole Donatelli, Angelica Neisa,
and NDIA SE. (2008). “A Survey of Systems
Engineering Effectiveness - Initial
Results.” Carnegie Mellon University,
Research Showcase @ CMU, Software
Engineering Institute
3 Van der Velden, Alex, David Fox, Jeff Haan,
(2012). “Early Stage Verification and
Validation of Cyber-Physical Systems
through Requirements Driven Probabilistic
Certificate of Correctness Metric.” Paper
presented at the ASME 2012 International
Design Engineering Technical Conferences
and Computers and Information in
Engineering Confere

33
 Congress Highlights
Models for Intralaminar
Damage and Failure of
Fiber Composites
Prof. Dr.-Ing. K. Rohwer - DLR, Germany
Member of the NAFEMS DACH Steering Committee and CWG
Introduction
For an efficient design the structural engineer needs to
know as accurately as possible under what conditions
the designated material will develop damage and finally
fail. Only then it is possible to fully exploit the potential
of the structure while maintaining the required safety.
In any case, some information on damage and failure
must be obtained by suitable tests. These tests are
usually performed on coupons and aimed at
determining the material strength under a specific
single state of stress, be it pure tension, compression
or shear. The general state of stress in a loaded
structure, however, consists of several, if not all,
components of the stress tensor. Thus, a criterion is
needed which maps the actual state of stress to the
limited number of test results.
This paper will review the different possibilities of
formulating criteria and point out development
tendencies, limited to laminated continuous fiber-
reinforced polymer composites. Such reviews have
been performed previously, for instance by Nahas[1] or
Thom[2]. Since then, however, models have been
developed further. In parts that is due to the
tremendous increase in computational power which
allows for more and more complex models. Besides,
the World-Wide Failure Exercises WWFE-I[3], -II[4] and
–III[5] have demonstrated deficiencies in the existing
failure theories and therewith fired new developments.
The large number of existing theories prohibits
recognizing them all; rather only those will be assessed
which in the opinion of the author have reached some
level of acceptance. Furthermore, not every detail of the
respective theory can be outlined; only those aspects
will be referred to which the author regards important.
34
The scope of this review is focused on intralaminar
fracture of laminates made from unidirectional layers
which are subjected to quasi-static loading.
Delaminations, woven fabrics, and effects resulting
from fatigue or impact loads are not covered. Further,
the material behavior after the first appearance of
damage is of interest, especially for fiber composites.
That is because in case of matrix failure the fibers are
often able to carry much higher loads. Effects of the
progressive failure of fiber composites have been
extensively studied by Knight[6]. He differentiated
between ply discounting approaches and continuum
damage mechanics methods. Libonati and Vergani[7]
recently have tested fiber composite behavior before
and after failure onset using thermography. They have
identified three regions: An initial region without
damage, a second region where micro-damages
appear which may be initiated by pre-existing defects,
and a third region with an extended damage size.
Considering these results, within this paper the main
focus is laid on the second and third region. Different
failure criteria and damage progression models will be
outlined, pros and cons be mentioned, and tendencies
in the development will be identified.
A vast majority of existing failure criteria is formulated
in stresses, and there are good arguments to do so.
Christensen[8], for instance, mentioned that such a
formulation would be more suitable in order to fit with
fracture mechanics or dislocation dynamics. In addition
he pointed out that viscous material can fail under
constant stress, but not under constant strain due to
relaxation. A major point of criticism against a stress-
based criterion is related to strength measurements.
Usually strength is obtained as the load carrying
capacity at final failure. Many tests, however, show a
rather nonlinear stress-strain behavior, which at least
in parts is due to progressive damage. There is a need
to clearly define failure of composites. From
comparative studies between deterministic and
probabilistic analyses of cross-ply laminates under
tension Sánchez-Heres et al.[9] concluded that an
increased understanding is required regarding the
effects of progressive matrix cracking in order to reach
a safer structure.
During the design phase ‘quick and dirty’ methods are
needed which are fast, simple to use and lead into the
right direction, but do not claim to be highly accurate.
Among these is the netting theory, where only the
fibers are accounted for carrying loads. Quite popular is
a limitation of strains to a fixed amount. Further there
is the 10% rule by Hart-Smith[10], predicting the
strength and stiffness of fiber–polymer composites on
the basis of simple rule-of mixtures. Though very
useful, such methods will not be considered in the
following.
Homogeneous models
Shape of failure envelope
Of course fiber composites are not homogeneous,
however, the overall behavior of the material can be
appropriately described by smeared out properties.
Also, a large number of failure models are based on the
assumption of a homogeneous anisotropic material,
specifying a failure envelope in stresses or strains.
There is a general agreement that the failure envelope
should be convex. Otherwise, unloading from a certain
state of stress may indicate failure. It is under
discussion, however, as to whether the failure surface
should be open or closed. Christensen[8] stated: “All
historical efforts to derive general failure criteria used
the condition that the isotropic material would not fail
under compressive hydrostatic stress”, which means
that the failure surface is assumed open. In his treaties
on failure surfaces for polymeric materials Tschoegl[11]
pointed at “the common sense requirement that the
surface should be open in the purely compressive
octant (because hydrostatic compression at reasonable
pressures cannot lead to failure in the ordinary sense)”.
For fiber composites the situation is different. Because
of the stiff fibers an external hydrostatic load causes
matrix stresses which differ considerably from
hydrostatic ones. Comparing theories and experiments
of the WWFE-II exercise Kaddour and Hinton[12]
mentioned “the diversity exhibited between the theories
as to whether certain failure envelopes are ‘open’ or
‘closed’”. However, this discrepancy should not exist,
and Christensen[8] has provided reasonable arguments
why fiber composites cannot sustain unlimited
hydrostatic pressure.
Non-interactive criteria
The easiest criterion limits every stress component
separately, not accounting for any interaction.
Astonishingly enough this rather crude approach has
been applied quite successfully by Zinoviev et al.[13] in
WWFE-I. The failure criterion was supplemented by a
special model characterizing the progressive damage
under transverse tension and in-plane shear of a UD
ply within a multidirectional laminate. This model
describes the loading as linear elastic — ideal plastic,
and the unloading as linear elastic with a smaller
module. A comparatively favorable performance was
highlighted by Hinton et al.[14]. Some discrepancies
between theoretical predictions and test results
Zinoviev et al.[15] traced back to the assumption about
the fatal impact of ultimate transverse compressive
stresses in a single ply on the failure of the whole
composite laminate.
Hart-Smith[16]–[18] applied modified maximum strain
as well as maximum stress criteria in the WWFE-I. The
modification affects a truncation of the failure envelope
in the biaxial tension–compression quadrant.
Differences between analysis and test results were
explained by deficiencies with respect to matrix-
dominant failure. The maximum strain criterion in
conjunction with plasticity used by Bogetti et al.[19],[20]
delivered good results in the WWFE-I; the
strengthening effect that appears under tri-axial
loading or hydrostatic pressure, however, is obviously
not well captured as has been admitted by Bogetti et
al.[21]. Furthermore, Bogetti’s theory predicts a
completely closed failure envelope even for isotropic
materials.
Nahas[1] has referred to further non-interactive
theories which to some degree account for the strength
of the constituents. In general, however, these theories
have not been used very often in practice. It is but the
maximum strain model which because of its simplicity
is still applied especially in the initial design phase.
Interpolation criteria
Following yield conditions for isotropic and orthotropic
materials, Hoffman[22] proposed a quadratic fracture
condition accounting for the difference between tensile
and compressive strength in fiber and transverse
directions. Based on the idea that a tensor polynomial
can describe the failure surface, Tsai and Wu[23] came
up with a similar approach. These popular failure
criteria consider interactions between different
components of the stress tensor. They suffer, however,
from certain drawbacks. Distinguishing between fiber
breakage, matrix cracks, or interface failure is not
possible by a smooth mathematical function. Besides,
determination of the interaction terms linked to the
product of two normal stress components requires
difficult tests under biaxial load; and these terms are
important since they may indicate implausible strength
levels above those in fiber direction. By comparing with
test results under plain stress conditions
Narayanaswami and Adelman[24] concluded to rather
set these terms to zero. Liu and Tsai[25] underlined
35
 that the failure surface must be closed, and they gave
an overview over different possibilities for the
interaction terms. Further, they have outlined a
procedure for determining progressive laminate failure
using reduced moduli which in the end leads to last ply
failure. DeTeresa and Larsen[26] have proposed
relations between the interaction terms and the
strengths in fiber and transverse direction which fit to
an open failure surface. Test under hydrostatic pressure
has shown no damage.
There are a number of other interpolation criteria with
certain inconveniences or restrictions. The criterion
proposed by Norris[27] does not explicitly account for
differences in tensile and compression strength; on
application the user must check the sign of the
different stress components and use corresponding
strength values. The same holds for the Tsai–Hill
criterion as described by Azzi and Tsai[28], which differs
from the Norris criterion only in the interaction
between the axial and transverse normal stress. The
proposal by Yamada and Sun[29] is sometimes looked
upon as a degeneration of the above mentioned criteria,
a view which ignores the intention to determine the
final failure of a laminate. Further, the shear strength
to be used in this criterion must be determined in tests
with crossply laminates leading to much higher values
than that obtained from a single ply. It is also worth
mentioning that Yamada and Sun stressed the need to
account for statistical distributions of the strength
values. The criterion by Rotem[30],[31] differentiates
between failure in the fibers or in the matrix. Fiber
failure (FF) is modeled by a maximum stress criterion
in fiber direction with some modifications accounting
for effects of transverse stresses, whereas matrix
failure is predicted using a quadratic interaction of
axial, transverse, and shear stresses. By means of
comparing with test results, Kaddour and Hinton[12]
stated that there are indications ‘‘that the theory does
not discriminate adequately between initial and final
failure’’.
Several other interpolation criteria have been
mentioned by Nahas[1], which to the author’s
knowledge have not reached much public attention.
Physically based criteria
Distinguishing between interpolation criteria and
physically based ones is a bit artificial and a traditional
classification. Neither are the interpolation criteria free
of some physical background nor are the physically
based ones free of some simple interpolation aspects.
There rather is a gradual transition between both
categories which makes it somewhat arbitrary where to
draw the line.
In his model development, Hashin[32] pointed out that
using a formulation quadratic in stresses is based on
curve fitting considerations rather than on physical
reasoning. He looked at the stress invariants and
differentiated between four failure modes: tension or
compression in fiber or in transverse direction. For the
36
inter-fiber failure he mentioned the idea to hold the
stresses acting at the failure plane responsible. That
implies to determine the most probable crack direction
which is computationally costly. Hence he settled for
the quadratic formulation which leads to not fully
satisfying solutions.
Building up on Hashin’s original idea Puck[33],[34]
formulated a criterion which yielded rather accurate
results in the WWFE-I. He strictly distinguished
between FF and IFF, where the latter comprises matrix
cracks and fiber–matrix debonding. Puck, too, regarded
the stresses in the fracture plain responsible for IFF. If
the normal stress on the fracture plain is positive
(tensile), then all three stress components foster the
failure, whereas compressive stress increases the
strength by means of internal friction. The different
behavior under tension and compression requires
additional material parameters which describe the
inclination of the fracture master surface at zero
normal stress. Recommendations for these inclination
parameters are provided by Puck et al.[35]. Based on
Puck’s model the strength degradation of laminates
which suffer from an IFF within a certain layer was
investigated by Knops and Bögle[36]. Also the German
engineering guideline[37] regarding the analysis of
components from fiber reinforced plastics relies on
Puck’s failure criterion. Dong et al.[38] complemented
Puck’s theory by adding effects of ply thickness and ply
angles of neighboring laminae.
The failure mode concept (FMC) as set up by Cuntze
and Freund[39] aimed at capturing the behavior of five
different failure modes. Based on stress invariants the
model provides one failure condition each for two FF
modes and three IFF modes. Corresponding to Puck’s
inclination parameters two curve parameters are to be
determined by multi-axial tests. Possible interactions
between failure modes are accounted for by a
probabilistically based series spring model approach.
The FMC was subsequently improved by Cuntze[40],[
41]. In connection with the behavior of isolated and
embedded laminas special emphasis is put on the
difference between the onset of failure and the final
failure of composite laminates. Furthermore,
Cuntze[42] carefully examined the tests provided for the
WWFE-II and after certain corrections obtained rather
good agreements.
At NASA Langley Research Center, Dávila et al.[43]
have proposed failure criteria for fiber composite
laminates under plane stress conditions which were
extended to three-dimensional stress states by Pinho et
al.[44] and eventually improved with respect to matrix
compression failure by Pinho et al.[45]. As with
Hashin’s[32] approach the failure model considers four
different scenarios: tension and compression in fiber
and transverse direction. For compression in fiber
direction the effect of fiber undulation is regarded. Nali
and Carrera[46] compared this approach against some
interpolation criteria for plane-stress problems and
found good agreement with test results.
In a detailed analysis Catalanotti et al.[47] described
certain pitfalls of existing 3D failure criteria. They
pointed to the requirement of using in situ strength
properties in order to account for the ply thickness
effect. The pitfalls could be avoided by an improved
criterion for transverse matrix failure. Longitudinal
tension failure is predicted by a maximum strain
criterion, and longitudinal compression failure accounts
for fiber kinking. Building on this proposal and on the
three-dimensional plasticity model for composite
laminates developed by Vogler et al.[48] Camanho et
al.[49] formulated new criteria where transverse failure
and kinking models are invariant-based. For validation
in case of complex three-dimensional stress states
computational micromechanics turned out to be a
useful tool.
Damage mechanics approach
Damage mechanics does not provide conditions at
which a certain type of damage occurs; rather it uses
internal variables to describe the progressive loss of
rigidity due to damage of material. Ladevèze and Le
Dantec[50] have applied damage mechanics to set up a
model which describes ply-wise matrix microcracking
and fiber/matrix debonding. Reaching the maximum
mean stress or a maximum of the load-deflection curve
specifies the laminate failure. This model was adopted
by Payan and Hochard[51] to study the behavior of UD
laminates from carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP)
under shear and transverse tension. They found elastic
behavior up to brittle failure in fiber direction, and
gradient loss of rigidity due to damage under shear and
transverse tension. Based on these results they
developed a model which covers the damage state by
means of two scalar-damage variables describing the
loss of rigidity under shear and transverse tension
loading, respectively. The model has proven to be valid
for a ‘‘diffuse damage’’ phase where micro-cracks
occur and it is limited to the first intralaminar macro-
crack. Hochard et al.[52] have further extended the
model to problems with stress concentrations. The
approach is based on a Fracture Characteristic Volume
which is a cylinder defined at the ply scale where the
average stress is calculated and compared to the
maximal strength of the material.
Barbero and de Vivo[53] presented a damage
mechanics approach where the damage surface has
the shape of the Tsai–Wu[28] criterion. But it goes
beyond a failure criterion by ‘‘identifying a damage
threshold, hardening parameters for the evolution of
damage, and the critical values of damage’’. These
parameters are all related to known material properties
but not directly measurable (cf. Barbero and Cosso[54]).
Van Paepegem et al.[55] performed tension tests with
[±45]2s laminates and used the results to determined
one parameter each for shear modulus degradation
and the accumulation of permanent shear strain. The
same authors[56] applied these parameters to a
mesomechanical model which did not account for time-
dependent effects like strain rate or viscoelasticity.
Nevertheless they were able to describe the nonlinear
behavior up to failure of glass-fiber reinforced
composite laminates under various loads rather
accurately. Time and temperature dependency of
fracture strengths both in tension and compression
were thoroughly studied by Miyano et al.[57]. They found
out that the strength master curves can be set up
successfully by using the reciprocation law between
time and temperature.
A majority of models for damage progression in
laminates are based on the unrealistic assumption that
each ply behaves independently of its neighbors. In
order to account for the interaction between adjacent
layers Williams et al.[58] developed a continuum
damage approach for sub-laminates. Therewith it is not
intended to predict details of damage at the ply level,
rather to capture the sub-laminate’s overall response.
The idea was further upgraded by Forghani et al.[59]
considering several aspects specific for damage
progression in multidirectional composite laminates
and applied to the open hole problems of the WWFE-III.
The open hole tension strength of composite laminates
was also studied by Ridha et al.[60]. They found a
significant interaction between delamination and in-
plane damage, so that neglecting delamination would
overestimate strength.
Frizzell et al.[61] developed a numerical method based
on continuum damage mechanics that is capable of
describing sub-critical damage and catastrophic failure
mechanisms in composite laminates. They proposed a
‘‘pseudo-current’’ damage evaluation approach which
avoids convergence problems even for complex damage
mechanisms.
Inhomogeneous models
Strength of constituents
Fibers and the matrix material are characterized by a
large disparity in stiffness and strength. Though
smeared out in the models reviewed above it certainly
influences the failure process and thus is reflected in
certain features. In this section, approaches will be
discussed which account for the inhomogeneity in one
way or the other. To this end strength properties of the
constituents are needed. Measuring them, however,
encounters difficulties.
Resin strengths are typically measured in appropriate
tests with neat material. An overview over models with
relevance to resin failure was given by Fiedler et al.[62].
These authors have proven that the type of resin failure
depends not only on the material itself but also on the
state of stress. They found out that “ductility is a
function of the amount of tri-axiality and explains why
ductile polymers behave brittle when used as a matrix
in fiber reinforced composites”. Such an effect was
detected and analyzed already by Asp et al.[63]. On the
other hand Pae[64] has found that brittle epoxy
develops yielding when hydrostatic pressure is
superimposed on the loading. Because of these
intricacies, properties determined from tests with neat
resin must be handled with caution when used in a
micromechanical failure analysis.
37
 Shear strength of the fiber-matrix interface can be
obtained from fiber pullout or pushout tests. Kerans
and Parthasarathy[65] proposed a procedure for
extracting interface parameters from the test data. An
analytical model describing the fiber pushout was
developed by Liang and Hutchinson[66]. More involved
is the determination of interface strength under
transverse loads since secondary transverse stress
perpendicular to the primary transverse compression
affects the threat of fiber-matrix interface fracture.
Correa et al.[67] found out that secondary tensile stress
increases the risk whereas compression decreases it.
Measuring fiber tensile strength seems to be a
relatively easy task. When performing the tests,
however, it becomes apparent that the results depend
on the specimen length. The longer the specimen, the
lower is the measured tensile strength. Even more
questionable is the determination of the compressive
strength in fiber direction. In a composite the
compressed fibers usually do not suffer a material
failure but a loss of stability. Thus the strength limit
heavily depends on the matrix properties and cannot be
determined from the fibers alone.
Models with some effect of inhomogeneity
In this section, approaches will be discussed which to
some extent consider inhomogeneity but still show
relations to the homogeneous models mentioned
above. This evidently holds for the discrete damage
mechanics approach as proposed by Barbero and
Cortes[68]. By means of fracture mechanics applied to
the inhomogeneous material they determined
parameters for stiffness reduction of the homogenized
structure. Barbero and Cosso[54] showed that this
approach can be successfully applied to model damage
and failure of laminates from CFRP.
Inhomogeneity plays an important role in tests of
inplane shear strength. There is as yet a deep
disagreement as how to obtain reliable values. Odegard
and Kumosa[69] have thoroughly investigated the
standard Iosipescu test with 0° specimens as well as
the 10° off-axis test. They found good agreement only if
the Iosipescu tests are accompanied by fully nonlinear
finite element analyses including plasticity and
premature cracks, and the 10° off-axis test must be
carefully machined to avoid micro-crack at the
specimen edges.
The growth of cracks in a UD fiber reinforced lamina
was modeled by Cahill et al.[70]. By means of the
extended finite element method (XFEM) for
heterogeneous orthotropic materials where material
interfaces are present as well as a modified maximum
hoop stress criterion for determining the direction of
the crack propagation at each step they found out that
for a material with a large stiffness rate between fiber
and transverse direction the crack will propagate along
the fiber direction, regardless of the specimen
geometry, loading conditions or presence of voids.
Matrix cracking and fiber–matrix debonding seem to
impair each other. By means of shear load Nouri et
38
al.[71] generated fiber–matrix debonding and observed
its effect on crack density under transverse load. The
authors developed a modified transverse cracking
toughness model.
In order to accomplish the tasks put forward in the
WWFE-I, Gotsis et al.[72] used the computer code ICAN
by Murthy and Chamis[73], which determines material
properties using micromechanics and accounts for
laminate attributes like delamination or free edge
effects. In addition to the maximum stress criterion a
modified distortion energy failure criterion determines
the ply failure. Comparison with the test results as
provided by Gotsis et al.[74] revealed reasonable results
in cases of fiber dominated failure, but rather large
discrepancies when matrix failure was predominant.
Analysis methods were further improved to a full
hierarchical damage tracking and applied in the
WWFE-III challenge by Chamis et al.[75]. Therewith
constituent properties determined by inverse model
application were used for the micromechanical analysis
part.
Tensile strength in fiber direction
Some effort was put on developing models for the
determination of tensile strength in fiber direction from
constituent properties. Considering the standard
composite design with an extension to failure of the
matrix much higher than that of the fibers, the
composite failure stress can be roughly estimated by
the rule of mixture from the failure stress of the fiber
and the matrix stress at fiber rupture. However, that
does neither account for varying fiber strength along
each single fiber nor for strength variation between
fibers. A number of hypotheses accounting for these
variations have been proposed, e.g. by Rosen[76] and
Zweben[77], but the application is not very convincing.
More recent developments along this line are the global
load sharing scheme by Curtin[78], the simultaneous
fiber-failure model by Koyanagi et al.[79] and statistical
models for fiber bundles in brittle-matrix composites
by Lamon[80].
Compressive strength in fiber direction
Models for compressive strength in fiber direction were
first set up by studying the buckling of fibers on an
elastic support. Depending on the fiber volume fraction
Dow and Rosen[81] differentiated between an extension
and a shear failure mode. Their results, however,
proposed too high strength values. Xu and
Reifsnider[82] extended the model by assuming
slippage between fibers and the matrix over certain
regions and therewith determined a good agreement
with test results. Following a thorough review of the
models developed until then Lo and Chim[83] proposed
to improve the microbuckling concept by considering
transverse isotropy of the fibers and the effects of resin
Young’s modulus, fiber misalignment, a weak fiber
matrix interface as well as voids. They also pointed out
that in case the strain to failure of the fibers is reached
prior to buckling, then the compressive strength should
be determined by the rule of mixture between fibers
and the matrix. The effect of fiber misalignment and
resultant kinking was studied by Budiansky and
Fleck[84]. Their model, however, was not able to predict
the width of the kink band and its inclination.
Micromechanical analyses of the kink band formation
after fiber buckling including the effect of fiber
misalignment were performed by Kyriakides et al.[85]
and by Jensen and Christoffersen[86]. After a thorough
derivation of a stress based model for fiber kinking,
Ataabadi et al.[87] pointed to certain drawbacks of the
model. In order to alleviate them they proposed an
improvement based on strains and used it to predict the
compressive strength depending on the fiber
misalignment. On validating this strain based model
against test results Ataabadi et al.[88] found that for
specimens with an off-axis angle >0° this model can
predict the compressive strength of UD laminated
composites with acceptable accuracy. Gutkin et
al.[89],[90] distinguished between two different failure
mechanisms: shear-driven fiber compressive failure and
kinking/splitting. Similar to that approach Prabhakar
and Waas[91] studied the interaction of kinking and
splitting by means of a 2D finite element model. With a
perfect interface the stress–strain curve shows a typical
instability behavior with a sharp peak and a snap-back
branch afterwards. Since local strains then exceeded the
strain to failure for polymer matrix material discrete
cohesive zone elements were applied at the fiber–matrix
interface. It turned out that it is important to know
especially the mode-II cohesive strength of the interface
in order to determine the compressive strength and
failure mode of UD laminates accurately. The same
authors[92] further extended the micromechanical
model of failure under compression to multidirectional
laminates considering delaminations. That allowed
studying the effect of stacking sequence on the
compressive strength. Mishra and Naik[93] used the
inverse micromechanical method to calculate fiber
properties and applied them to determine the
compressive strength for a composite with a different
fiber volume fraction. A formulation capable of obtaining
the maximum compression stress, and the post-critical
performance of the material once fiber buckling has
taken place was proposed by Martinez and Oller[94].
Dharan and Lin[95] questioned the role of initial fiber
waviness and kink band formation on the compressive
strength in fiber direction. Like Lo and Chim[83] did
earlier, they rather extended the micro-buckling model
of Dow and Rosen[81] by accounting for an interface
layer around the fibers, the thickness and shear
modulus of which have to be adjusted to test results.
Zidek and Völlmecke[96] used a simple analytical model
introduced by Wadee et al.[97]. They improved it by
accounting for initial fiber misalignment. Furthermore
this model allows for predicting the kink band inclination
angle.
Obviously, there is not a generally accepted view yet as
to whether kink band formation is a failure mode that
limits the compressive strength or rather a secondary
effect which appears after buckling.
Normal strength in transverse direction
Tensile and compressive strength in transverse direction
was studied by Asp et al.[98],[99]. They used a
micromechanical approach with a representative volume
element, which thereafter became more and more
popular. Not accounting for fiber–matrix debonding they
have found that the fiber modulus has a significant effect
on the failure caused by cavitation in the matrix. This
brittle failure occurred earlier than yielding. A thin
interphase of a rubbery material improves the
transverse failure properties. Tensile and compressive
strength with perfect fiber–matrix adhesion on the one
hand and complete debonding on the other hand was
compared by Carvelli and Corigliano[100]. Assuming
periodicity for rather small fiber volume fraction they
determined finite strength under biaxial tension only
with debonded interfaces. Transverse tensile failure
behavior of fiber–epoxy systems was also studied by Cid
Alfaro et al.[101]. They pointed to a strong influence of
the relative strength of the fiber–epoxy interface and the
matrix. Vaughan and McCarthy[102] found out that in
case of a strong fiber–matrix interface residual thermal
stresses improve the transverse tensile strength.
Shear strength
Several authors applied micromechanical means for
analyzing fiber composite shear strength. King et
al.[103] determined the composite transverse shear
strength, mainly to predict the effect of fiber surface
treatment and sizing on the interfacial bond strength.
They found out that the predicted composite shear
strength strongly depends upon the type of matrix and
the interface strength, and is not significantly dependent
on the fiber properties. Axial tension tests on [±45°]s
laminates are often used to determine the composite
shear stress–strain response. Comparing the shear
behavior of CFRP with epoxy and PEEK matrix, Lafarie-
Frenot and Touchard[104] determined a pronounced
plastic deformation but no visible damage in the low
loading range. Higher load levels led to increased
damage in the epoxy matrix and early failure whereas
the PEEK material exhibited even larger plastic
deformation in connection with a considerable change of
the fiber angle. The detectability of microcracks,
however, may have been limited due to the fact, that
contrast agent for X-ray inspection was applied to the
free edges only. In contrary, by means of tests with dog
bone specimens and micromechanical analyses Ng et
al.[105] found out that it is micro-cracking rather than
plasticity, which brings about the observed nonlinear
softening. In V-notched rail shear tests on cross-ply
laminates reinforced with HS fibers Totry et al.[106] did
not find any evidence of damage in the MTM57 epoxy
resin after a shear deformation of 25%. If the same resin
was reinforced with HM fibers, however, intraply damage
occurred at γ12=15%. It seems rather unlikely that such
large strains can appear without any damage. For
laminates out of glass-fiber reinforced epoxy
Giannadakis and Varna[107] determined viscoelasticity
and viscoplasticity as the major cause for nonlinearity,
whereas the effect of microdamage is very small. Until
verifying what really happens in the shear tests it seems
to be unreasonable to invest further effort into modeling
it.
39
 Strength under combined loading
Micromechanics were also used for strength prediction
under combined loading. The influence of interface
strength on the composite behavior under out-of-plane
shear and transverse tension was studied by Canal et
al.[108]. They concluded that homogeneous models like
those proposed by Hashin or Puck cannot accurately
predict the failure surface. Transverse compression and
out-of-plane shear was analyzed by Totry et al.[109],
which led to the finding that interface decohesion must
be taken into account for composites in matrix-
dominated failure modes. Also for transverse
compression and longitudinal shear Totry et al.[110]
discovered that the interface strength plays an
important role for the composite strength. Ha et al.[111]
proposed a micromechanics based model which used
the maximum stress criterion for FF, a modified von
Mises yield criterion for matrix failure and a simple
quadratic criterion for failure of the fiber–matrix
interface. In order to simulate the tasks of the WWFE-II
Huang et al.[112] complemented these criteria with a
progressive damage model taking care of the nonlinear
matrix behavior. A damage factor of 0.4 was assumed
for final rupture of the damaged material. Huang et
al.[113] further adapted the approach to the test results
by using a quadratic FF criterion, a fiber kinking model,
and a reduction of stress amplification factors for
inplane shear terms. Melro et al.[114],[115] developed
an elasto-plastic damage model suitable for epoxy
matrix material which accounts for different behavior
under transverse tension, transverse compression, and
longitudinal as well as transverse shear.
Conclusion and outlook
Considerable effort has been put into the development
of suitable models to reliably predict damage and
failure of fiber composites. In spite of the
inhomogeneity of the material homogeneous models
were first choices for quite some time. They have
developed from simple maximum stress or strain
criteria via interpolation criteria to physically based
ones. On looking at the frequency of publications in this
field the development seems to have passed the top.
40
There are quite a number of them available now. What
is missing, however, is a reliable statement as to which
one should be applied in the respective case at hand.
Damage mechanics accounts for the residual strength
after initial damage. In general that is done by stiffness
reduction smearing out local effects and therewith
simulating a material nonlinearity of the affected layer.
There are indications that interactions between
adjacent layers can have a considerable influence on
the laminate strength, which also can be accounted for
by means of damage mechanics models.
More close to the behavior of fiber composites are
heterogeneous models. Talreja[116] has carefully
analysed ambiguities and uncertainties in classical
failure predictions and provided remedies to overcome
them, including a comprehensive analysis strategy. A
Micromechanics Simulation Challenge by Godsell et
al.[117] is announced, presenting benchmarking
exercises against which computational tools can be
compared. The greater computational effort required
with heterogeneous models is no longer a major
handicap thanks to the rapid increase of computational
power and storage capacity. It is more the difficulty to
determine relevant material properties. That especially
holds if the model considers an interface layer between
fibers and the matrix. Inverse methods cannot be
considered as the general solution to that problem
since they require the choice of a micromechanical
model in the first place. Compressive strength in fiber
direction has attracted special attention. However, the
role of kink band formation, which is observed in the
failure process, seems to be not thoroughly understood.
All in all it must be concluded that models for
predicting fiber composite damage and failure have not
yet reached a fully satisfying state. For now and in the
foreseeable future virtual testing of fiber composites
can be suitably applied in the initial design phase and
serve as a useful supplement during structural
qualification. But models need further improvement
before tests on real structures can be fully replaced by
simulations.
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 Congress Highlights
Improvements of an Air-
Liquid Interface In-Vitro
Testing Method for
Inhalable Compounds
Using CFD-Methods
Dr. C. Brodbeck - Fraunhofer Institute SCAI, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Dr. D. Ritter, Dr. J. Knebel - Fraunhofer Institute ITEM, Hannover, Germany
Winner of the NWC15
‘Most Innovative Use of Simulation’ Best Paper Award
Introduction
within the last decade the air/liquid-interface (ALI) cell
culture technology became the state-of-the-art method
for in-vitro testing of airborne substances. Cells are
cultured on microporous membranes and thereby get
efficiently into contact with the test atmosphere while
being supplied with nutrients and being humidified
from the basal side of the membrane. Biological
models like cell lines from the human lung or complex
ex vivo models like precision cut lung slices (PCLS) can
be applied. However, especially for the application of
this basic technology on the testing of a broader range
of airborne materials like droplet and particle aerosols,
there is still no general scientific consensus on the
question of the most suitable exposure design.
Concepts including complex physical phenomena like
electrostatic deposition of particles or thermophoresis
have been introduced to address specific scientific
questions. To develop a concept for a more general
application of the ALI culture technology for all kinds of
airborne materials in the long run, this study aimed at
the characterization of the influence of the aerosol
conduction system on the particle deposition and the
behaviour of the liquid supply by the use of
computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
In Vitro Air/Liquid-Interface
An in-vitro air/liquid interface reproduces typical
human physical barrier systems, like intestinal mucosa
or in the present case bronchial epithelial cells as a
laboratory scaled setup. A nutrient solution must
ensure that the applied cells are kept alive (Figure 1).
Any process to investigate substances with in vitro
systems is basically divided into three single steps: The
"cell system", the "exposure step" and the “read out”.
These elements are the basis for the establishment of
an efficient and meaningful test system. Optimization of
each individual step and re-integration to an overall
process comprises the potential for a powerful test
system with high integrity and high efficiency. Typically,
the exposure step is organized as an isolated step in
the experimental cell based process, leading to an
unfavorable, time-consuming, expensive and cell-
damaging handling of the biological test system. In
contrast to this common situation, the in this project
applied air/liquid-interface (P.R.I.T.® ExpoCube®)
enables with its “all-in-one-plate” concept a completely
integrated workflow by use of a standard multiwell
plate throughout the whole experimental process. A
typical setup with aerosol generation, monitoring and
exposure is shown in Figure 2.
43
 Figure 1: An in vitro model replaces the real conditions in a human lung
Simulating the Aerosol Conduction System
As shown in Figure 2 the potential toxic aerosol is
conducted to the air/liquid interface in order to bring it
in contact with the human cells. Due to the aerosol
generation process the volume flow of the aerosol
carrying air is higher than what is needed or rather is
allowed in the deposition area. This limitation comes
from the fact that an increased volume flow would
harm the living cells in the system. As encountered in
many biomedical applications it is therefore necessary
to branch off a defined amount of fluid. It is not only the
aim to increase the branched off amount to get a more
obvious and faster aerosol deposition, it is also desired
to get a nearly equal distribution into the multiple
branches and on the surface occupied with the cells.
For the present apparatus design the following
questions were stated:
Figure 2: Experimental apparatus to expose human cells to potential toxic aerosols
44
1. Which design of the drain of the deposition device
will cause a more equal flow distribution?
2. How should the deposition device geometry be
modified to enhance particle deposition on cell
membranes?
3. Is there a possibility to enhance particle mass flow
into the branches feeding the deposition devices
without increasing the fluid flow rate in the
branches?
Our numerical analyses started with an investigation
how the shape of the nozzle which feeds the membrane
and how the shape of the drain influences the
deposition of particles of certain sizes. For this purpose
we extracted one of the several deposition devices
depicted as simulation model in Figure 3.
In the simulation model the fluid flow was assumed to be laminar and a insensitive. Injections were placed
steady state solver was applied. Due to the small portion of aerosols in the evenly and in some cases the inflow
flow there was no interaction of the particles (Ø 50nm to 3000nm as area was extended to account for the
cumulative distribution function CDF) with the carrier flow considered, so particle and flow history in the pipe
that the two phases could be simulated consecutively. In all simulations system.
with aerosols the particles were modelled in a Lagrangian frame of
reference with a spherical shape and gravity influence. Particles which Regarding the outward flow geometry
came into contact with a solid wall were regarded as trapped to that wall. it could be seen that as expected
The number of injections was increased until the results became increasing the number of drains from
four to seven smoothed the flow profile
in the vicinity of the cell membrane in
circumferential direction, but the
differences were rather small. The
shape of the nozzle was diversely
modified, but the simulations revealed
that the original shape was close to be
nearly optimal concerning the amount
of particles deposited; therefore only
small changes were applied. In Figure
4 the results for two actually differing
shapes are exemplarily compared.
Although the velocity distribution is
quite different the deposition of the
particles on the cell membrane
appeared surprisingly rather similar.
These simulations were accomplished
with STAR-CCM+® (CD-adapco).

Figure 3: From P.R.I.T. ExpoCube® (depicted on left side, inner construction Due to the partially submicron size of
disguised) extracted CFD model of the deposition device the particles we decided then to take
non-continuum effects like Brownian
motion [1] and a Stokes-Cunningham
particle drag law (slip correction) [2]
into account. In order to increase the
deposition rate further the effects of
thermophoresis [3] were included.
Those effects were unfortunately not
covered by STAR-CCM+® simulation
code so that we switched the
simulation software to ANSYS Fluent.
For particle sizes below 1μm these
effects revealed a significant influence
on the particle behaviour. To get a
temperature distribution inside the
deposition device a conjugate heat
transfer model was built up and the
results were applied as approximated
boundary conditions in further
simulations where thermophoresis
was considered.

We could confirm our previous

improvements of the deposition device
geometry simulating the different
models in ANSYS Fluent (Figure 5).
For the purpose of a clearer
evaluation, the cumulative distribution
for the particle sizes was dropped and
a representative number of particle
sizes was simulated individually. One
Figure 4: Comparison of two exemplarily selected geometries, could observe in Figure 5 that
velocity distribution, particle deposition on cell membrane and particles smaller than 15nm are not
particle tracks of different particle sizes for one injection point deposited; this effect showed up
especially after the Brownian motion

45
 Figure 5: Comparison of deposition rates for different
device geometries and activated thermophoresis,
additionally control for thicker lung slices (PCLS)
was included in the simulations. Tracks of these
particles exhibited that the particles are hardly
following the direction of the carrier flow. Even with all
the non-continuum models included it is unsettled, if
the simulation results represent the actual behaviour of
such extremely small particle.
At this point it was decided to extend the simulation
model and account at first for the supply pipe and the
branches without the deposition devices and afterwards
including them (Figure 6). Regarding the original
geometry it could be observed in the experiments and
simulations that the deposition rate decreases
continuously concerning the sequence of the branches
in flow direction. This behaviour seemed to be
understandable due to a loss of particles in the supply
pipe by reason of gravity and branched off particles. In
order to improve the system it was necessary to realize
the exact correlations between the flow pattern of the
carrier fluid and the particle tracks. It was therefore
inevitable to reveal the history of the particle tracks in
regard to the branch they turn in. As post-processing of
Fluent did not offer a graphical evaluation of particle
history, a simple tool was developed to read Fluent
particle history data and plot it in a coloured manner.
Figure 7 shows the history of the particles of Ø1000nm
for the original and a modified geometry. Regarding the
Figure 7: History of particles in certain slices exemplary for a diameter of 1000nm for the original and a
modified geometry; pink=leave through supply pipe, cyan=lost on supply pipe, red=enter fourth branch,
blue=enter third branch, green=enter second branch, black=enter first branch
46
Figure 6: Fluent model of one row; supply pipe and
four deposition devices with flow pattern
original geometry one can see that the branched off
particles are layered and the amount is reduced
concerning the subsequent branches.
Many particles leave the supply pipe without having a
chance to enter a branch and other particles are lost on
the pipe wall. To overcome this problem the idea came
up to break up the layered order by introducing
disturbances in the flow field right before the branches
and thereby drive particles from unutilised into branch
feeding flow areas.
In order to disturb the flow several geometries, like
bumps, nozzles, airfoils etc. in different dimensions and
positions were implemented and simulated. It was
recognized that an airfoil geometry on top of the supply
pipe yielded the best particle branch flows concerning
the absolute mass and the equal distribution. As one
can see in Figure 7 this effect is due to the fact that a
flow rotation (swirl) is placed in the pipe which pushes
fresh particles in the vicinity of the pipe wall where the
fluid is sucked into the branches. Since a variety of
particle sizes had to be considered, a compromise
concerning the magnitude of the rotational speed had
to be found due to the fact that larger particles tend to
be lost at the wall for stronger swirls.
For the found design with an
increased particle mass flow into the
branches, it was then verified if the
deposition rate on the cell
membrane measures up as well. In
Figure 8 for three different particles
sizes the deposition footprint on the
cell membrane and the deposition
rate related to the theoretical
deposition (branch particle mass
flow is proportional to fluid mass
flow) show a significant increase of
settled particles. This is mainly due
to the effect of thermophoresis but
was further increased by 10%
through the modifications in the
supply pipe. As the improvements
could be confirmed in several
experimental setups, the the present
constellation was applied for a
patent.

Simulating the Liquid

Supply System Figure 8: Particle footprint on cell membranes and deposition rate (DR)
The exposed cells are supplied with for the original geometry (Org) and the geometry disturbed by airfoils
a nutrient solution through a
ductwork which is integrated in the
air/liquid interface cube. In this
regard several questions were
posed, which were investigated
through numerical simulations:

1. Is there an equal distribution of

nutrient to all cell inserts?

2. What volume flow limit exists

regarding a maximum pressure
so not to harm the cells?

3. How fast can we flush the

system, i.e. replace the fluid in
the channels? Where are the
areas which are problematic for
flushing?
Figure 9: Approximated geometry of the liquid system, half
model due to symmetry, inflow (blue) and outflow (red)
4. How should we design the
channel cross-section to reduce
the pressure loss, respectively
the pressure on the membranes?

5. How should we design channels

if bubbles are present?
For question 1, 2, 3 and 4 we built up
a model of the fluid system (Figure
9), where we took advantage of the
symmetrical shape. Due to
confidentiality reasons the model in
Figure 9 is not depicted in its
original manner.
For several volume flows and
channel cross-sectional areas and Figure 10: Simulation result showing part of
shapes the pressure on the cell the liquid system after 3 minutes flushing,
membranes and the volume flows in areas with remains of old fluid are visible

47

Figure 11: Deviation from equal supply of liquid to the four
cell membranes through branched channel system
simulated in half model for various flow rates
Figure 12: Depiction of bubble position after t=0.2s and t=0.8s for different
channel layouts which illustrates the movability of the bubble
Figure 13: Moved bubble from chamber into channel with an
edged and rounded passage geometry, bubble on right side
has moved further in the same time period
48
the branches were determined in steady
state simulations and the flushing
behaviour was simulated applying
transient simulations. For these
simulations STAR-CCM+ was applied. In
the flushing simulations it was observed
that some areas, as depicted in Figure 10,
exhibited problems with a proper removal
of old liquid due to the rectangular shape
of the channels and sharp corners in the
cell membrane area.
These areas were modified, e.g. the
channel shape was switched from
rectangular to circular. It is later shown
that this also improved the performance
of the system when air bubbles are
present. For the flushing time it is
advantageous to reduce the overall fluid
mass in the system by reducing the
channel cross-sectional area, but on the
other hand this generates higher
pressure losses and thus leads to higher
pressures on the cell membranes.
Therefore a compromise had to be made
by defining intermediate values for the
circular channel diameter. Looking at the
equal distribution of the fluid to supply all
cell membranes sufficiently, it became
quickly obvious that the original channel
guidance was chosen already in an
excellent manner, so that the deviation
from uniformity ranged only from less
than one per mill for low flow rates to a
maximum of ca. two per mill for higher
flow rates (Figure 11).
A well-known problem of channels with a
small cross-sectional area is when
unavoidable air bubbles are stuck in the
system. This effect which is called
clogging [4] emerges when small
channels furcate and fluid forces through
surface tensions reach the same order of
magnitude as flow driving forces like
pressure. It is observed, that clogging
occurs preferentially in channel
contractions [5] and channel elbows [6].
When a bubble blocks a channel, this part
of the system is then insufficiently
supplied with nutrient solution. It is a
current but rather makeshift procedure to
actuate bubbles by clicking one’s finger at
the channel (if reachable) or bouncing the
whole apparatus. In order to reduce the
tendency for clogging, simulations with
different channel geometries were
conducted in ANSYS Fluent. The
extension of the model was successively
reduced due to the costly computing
times of the transient multi-phase
simulations.
To verify bubble behaviour in a bend of the channel a
small model with different cross-sectional shapes was
built up including a variation of the wetting behaviour of
the surface. Due to a lack of data the contact angles
were generally set to 45⁰ for a hydrophobic and 135⁰ for
a hydrophilic surface. The flow is forked and a bubble is
initially placed in one of the branches. In Figure 12 the
movability of the bubble is depicted for selective
simulations and it is evident, that the modified channel
layouts are better than the original rectangular
hydrophobic design. Also due to the already
experienced advantages for the flushing of the system a
circular cross-section for a hydrophobic surface was
selected. One might achieve even better results
combining a circular shape with a hydrophilic surface,
but this would have lead unfortunately to higher
production costs.
To verify the bubble behaviour in the region where the
flow leaves the cell membrane chamber a reduced
model was set-up. Due to computational costs it was
intended to keep the model in an adequate range and
therefore it was not possible to extend the geometry to
a preceding channel junction. However to be able to
judge the movability of the bubble a pressure boundary
condition was applied, so that the flow rate and the
bubble velocity could decrease for tight stuck bubbles.
As expected a rounded transition showed a better
bubble movability (Figure 13).
Conclusions
In the scope of a project of the Fraunhofer Institutes
ITEM and SCAI the development and improvement of an
air/liquid interface technology which emerged as a
compact device novelty was supported by
computational fluid mechanics.
Concerning the aerosol conduction and deposition
system the simulation results gave a meaningful
insight into the aerosol particle behaviour and provided
ways to enhance the amount of deposited particles on
the cell cultures through geometrical and physical
modifications. For that purpose on the one hand the
deposition device’s shape was modified to settle more
particles and on the other hand the supply pipe was
equipped with an apparatus to enhance the particle
mass flow to the feeding branches to the cell
membranes. Additionally thermophoresis effects were
introduced to further increase the efficiency. This
enhanced constellation was confirmed in experiments
and therefore applied for a patent.
Concerning the liquid nutrient supply system, which is
compactly included in the air/liquid interface, the
simulations helped to improve the performance by the
means of modifications of the channel geometry.
Attention was turned to the ability to uniformly supply
the cell inserts, to flush the system effectively without
harming the cells and to improve the capability to
overcome blockage by clogging effects of air bubbles.
References
[1] ANSYS® (2013): ANSYS Fluent Theory Guide – 16.2.1.6.
Brownian Force, Release 15.0, p. 376
[2] Hinds W. (1999). Aerosol Technology, Properties, Behavior
and Measurement of Airborne Particles, John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., p. 48-51
[3] ANSYS® (2013): ANSYS Fluent Theory Guide – 16.2.1.5.
Thermophoretic Force, Release 15.0, p. 375-376
[4] Jensen M.J. (2002): Bubbles in Microchannels, Master
Thesis, Technical University of Denmark
[5] Jensen M.J.,Goranovic G., Bruus H. (2004): The Clogging
Pressure of Bubbles in Hydrophilic Microchannel
Contractions, Journal of Micromechanics and
Microengineering
[6] Cubaud T., Ho C. (2004): Transport of Bubbles in Square
Microchannels, Physics of Fluids, Vol. 6
49
 NAFEMS Technical
Working Groups &
Regional Steering
Committees
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and promoting the effective use of simulation technology, is due in large part to the
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NAFEMS Technical Working Groups

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The NAFEMS Analysis Management Working Group has
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respect to the definition and execution of engineering
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(CSMWG)
The NAFEMS Computational structural mechanics
working group is concerned with the branch of
engineering that uses numerical methods to calculate
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Composites (CWG) Dynamics and Testing (DTWG)

The NAFEMS Composites Working Group was formed The NAFEMS Dynamics and Testing Working Group
to create awareness and education for the simulation of brings together analysts and experimentalists to form a
composites by gathering independent information and common body of understanding in dynamics.
providing independent analysis of composites
simulation capabilities and needs. Dynamic analysis is required when a load or excitation
is varying with time and the inertia of the structure is
significant. In particular, the possibility of resonance
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFDWG)
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The NAFEMS CFD Working Group is concerned with all
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50
Education & Training (ETWG)
The NAFEMS Education and Training Working Group is
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The Education and Training Working Group are
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The NAFEMS Geotechnical Working Group was formed
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application of numerical methods in geotechnical
engineering.
Numerical analysis using finite element and finite
difference methods has become a mainstream design
tool within geotechnics in the last decade or so. This is
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ground and adjacent structures.
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The NAFEMS High Performance Computing Working
Group aims to provide a vendor-neutral, end-user
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High Performance Computing in engineering
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and rotational displacements. It addresses the
problems of modelling multiple bodies mechanical
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The NAFEMS multiphysics working group has been set
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Industrial use of multiphysics simulations is a diverse
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The NAFEMS Optimisation Working Group is
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The NAFEMS Stochastics Working Group aim to
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51
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