Are you a student eager to apply your theoretical knowledge and fresh perspectives to real-world challenges? At Saab, we believe that innovation thrives on new ideas, and your master thesis project could be the spark that ignites our next technological breakthrough.
We recognize the immense value that students bring to our company. Your academic rigor, combined with your enthusiasm for cutting-edge technology, allows you to approach problems with a unique and insightful lens. At Saab, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with experienced engineers and specialists, gaining invaluable practical experience while making a tangible contribution to our growth and development.
This master thesis will be carried out within the Structural Analysis division at Saab Dynamics, Business Unit Ground Combat, with placement in Karlstad/Karlskoga. One site will be your primary location, with occasional travel to the other site when necessary.
Carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) offer high specific strength and stiffness, making them attractive for lightweight structures with demanding performance requirements. However, their mechanical response and failure behavior are considerably more complex than those of conventional metallic materials.
When subjected to low-velocity impact, composite laminates may develop interacting damage mechanisms, including matrix cracking, fiber failure, delamination, crushing, and permanent deformation. Some damage can occur internally and be difficult to detect through external inspection while still causing a significant reduction in structural performance.
Predicting such damage using finite element analysis requires suitable material models, representative material parameters, appropriate element and contact formulations, and reliable calibration and validation methods.
Ansys LS-DYNA provides several material models for fiber-reinforced composites. These differ in theoretical assumptions, required material data, damage and failure representation, numerical robustness, computational cost, and suitability for different element formulations and applications. Selecting an appropriate model and determining its parameters can therefore be challenging.
For Saab Dynamics, it is of interest to establish a structured understanding of how available composite material models in Ansys LS-DYNA can be applied to simulate low-velocity impact damage in carbon fiber reinforced polymer structures.
Description of the master thesis
The purpose of this thesis is to take a first step towards being able to predict damage and failure in a CFRP laminate subjected to a low-velocity impact drop test. The thesis will primarily be theoretically and numerically focused. Physical material testing or impact testing is unlikely to be included within the thesis itself.
The aim of this thesis is to develop a structured methodology for material modelling of carbon fiber reinforced polymer under low-velocity impact loading in Ansys LS-DYNA.