Development of triangular interface element with drilling degrees of freedoms and its application to natural fiber reinforced carbon ceramics composite material

Abstract

Improvements in bending deformation accuracy of three-node triangular element is required in the FEM analysis of natural fiber reinforced carbon ceramic composite materials. Therefore, we propose a three-node triangular interface element with drilling degrees of freedoms. The proposed element was formulated by applying the Heaviside function to the interface node of a triangular element with drilling degrees of freedoms. We call this element a “triangular interface element” because the stiffness matrix is composed of a triangular element and an interface element. To validate our proposed method, we conducted crack propagation analysis using a natural fiber reinforced carbon ceramic composite of bagasse ash and carbonized bagasse fiber. In this numerical example, we changed the interface adhesion and dispersion of the carbonized bagasse fibers. The maximum principal stress, flexural strength and crack propagation behavior of the composite material were accurately and validly analyzed by the proposed element.