Article by Sunil Bhandari, Roberto A. Lopez-Anido, Douglas J. Gardner published in JOM

An article by PhD student Sunil Bhandari, titled Elasto-Plastic Finite Element Modeling of Short Carbon Fiber Reinforced 3D Printed Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene Composites, has been published on the website of the JOM journal by the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society.

The article, which was coauthored by Doctors Roberto A. Lopez-Anido and Douglas Gardner, acts as the second chapter of Bhandari’s dissertation.

The following is the abstract for the article:

This research extends the existing classical lamination theory based finite element (FE) models to predict elasto-plastic and bimodular behavior of 3D printed composites with orthotropic material properties. Short carbon fiber reinforced acrylonitrile butadiene styrene was selected as the 3D printing material. Material characterization of a 3D printed unidirectional laminate was carried out using mechanical tests. A bimodular material model was implemented using explicit FE analysis to predict the tension and bending behavior of a 3D printed laminate. The results of the FE model predictions were experimentally validated. Hill’s yield function was effective at predicting the elasto-plastic stress–strain behavior of the laminate in tension. In bending, bimodular material behavior along with Hill’s yield function worked reasonably well in predicting the elasto-plastic bending of the laminate. The material model proposed can be used to predict the mechanical behavior of 3D printed parts with complex geometry under complex loading and boundary conditions.

Bhandari is from Pokhara, Nepal and is a PhD student in UMaine’s Civil Engineering program. His advisor is Lopez-Anido. To learn more about Bhandari, click here.