Abstract

Last years, composite materials for transport is increasingly deployed through their functionalization. The integration of nanofillers in composite materials makes it possible to meet the need for de-icing, self-curing and self sensing. The difficulty is to be able to model physical phenomena which take place at multiple scales. Multi-scale modeling allows a better understanding of phenomena from nano to macro and allows the deployment of these technologies at the scale of industrial parts. As part of the European MASTRO project, IPC is implementing simulations from the nano scale to the micro scale (Abaqus + Digimat) in order to validate the multi-scale approach making it possible to provide the input material data to the macro scale. Electrical modeling at the nano scale presents problems for a finite element solution (electron tunneling effect) and moreover requires a lot of computation time. This is why an analytical code has been developed in parallel in order to obtain the homogenized electrical conductivity values more quickly at the nano scale. This application was developed in python in order to be integrated into a web service. The homogenized data of electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and mechanical properties allowed the implementation of electro-thermal (Joule effect) and electro-mechanical (piezo resistive effect) modeling. These models have been validated on laboratory scale demonstrators in order to be deployed on industrial demonstrators. The modeling of the Joule effect with slaving of the electric field as a function of temperature has been deployed on an automobile demonstrator in order to validate a system allowing de-icing. In parallel, the modeling of the curing of thermoset composite materials was carried out by coupling an electro-thermo-mechanical model (Abaqus) to a curing model (Digimat) taking into account the variation in mechanical properties according to curing and temperature in order to obtain the distortions of the part resulting from the process.