Plastic analysis of complex microstructure composites using the generalized method of cells

A recently developed computationally efficient implementation of the Genera lized Method of Cells is extended here to deal with plasticity problems. Th e new formulation can be used to perform linear elastic and plastic microme chanical analysis of composites with complex microstructures. It makes use of a tangent plasticity matrix approach as opposed to an initial stiffness matrix approach employed in the original Generalized Method of Cells. This tangent stiffness matrix approach makes it possible to perform plastic anal yses of composites with microstructures that require a high-resolution, cel l-subcell model. To demonstrate the capabilities of the new formulation, it is applied to the problem of determining the influence of fiber shape and fiber architecture on the plastic behavior of two-phase unidirectional comp osites. Some results from previous studies on this subject are confirmed. N ew results that could not be obtained with previous implementations are als o reported. Problems modeled with up to 10,000 subcells are presented.