Solutions to intra-ply shear locking in finite element analyses of fibre reinforced materials

Intra-ply shear locking results in unrealistic fibre stresses and spurious wrinkling in composite forming simulations. Three remedies were investigated: aligning the mesh, applying reduced integration and using multi-field elements. Several triangular and quadrilateral elements were tested on their capability to avoid locking in a two-dimensional bias extension simulation. The resulting locking-free elements were tested in a realistic three-dimensional drape simulation of a biaxial fabric as well. The new triangular multi-field element seems to be the best locking-free element for unaligned meshes. It has a semi-quadratic in-plane and a linear out-of-plane displacement field. This combination improves the accuracy of the element and avoids contact problems in 3D simulations. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.