Solid and porous structures can be used as input for computations with ElastoDict. The mechanical properties of all constituent materials must be given. Including the pore/matrix material, GeoDict handles structures with up to 256 different constituent materials.

As a useful convention, for solid materials, the background (Material ID0) contributes to the computation and is referred to as matrix material. For porous media, Material ID0 is used for the pore space (void space).

Solid Materials

In solid structures, all constituent materials have non-zero physical material parameters (e.g., Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus for linear elastic materials; see the Constituent Materials section). In structures consisting of multiple solid materials, like e.g., composite materials, ElastoDict applies perfect contact at the interfaces between different materials. A typical example for a solid structure is a glass fiber reinforced composite.

Many different material models (plasticity, visco-plasticity, damage, …) are available in GeoDict. Additionally, user defined materials can be implemented as an Abaqus UMAT.

Porous Materials

Porous structures in GeoDict are materials where at least one constituent material is selected as Pore (Fluid) material, this means its Youngs’s Modulus and Poisson’s ratio are both set to zero. No stresses can occur in the pore space. Examples of porous structures are e.g. nonwovens and foams.

Some structures whose mechanical properties can be calculated with ElastoDict are:

For materials in the pore space, a pore pressure can be set which leads to stresses in the surrounding solid materials.

It is a requirement of all ElastoDict simulations that a continuous load path exists through the structure. This means that the solid materials must form a connected component in the load direction. Otherwise, the error message below is shown, and the simulation cannot be started.