• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.239-245
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• 2014

Finite element modeling of composite structures may be cumbersome due to complex distributions of reinforcements. In this paper, an efficient scheme is proposed that can generate periodic meshes for the composite structures. Regular meshes with hexahedral finite elements are first prepared, and the elements are then trimmed to fit external surfaces of reinforcements in the composite structures. The trimmed hexahedral finite elements located at interfaces between the matrix and the reinforcements correspond to polyhedral finite elements, which allow an arbitrary number of nodes and faces in the elements. Because the trimming process is consistently conducted by means of consistent algorithms, the elements of the reinforcements are automatically compatible with those of the matrices. With the additional consideration of periodicity of reinforcements in a representative volume element(RVE), the proposed scheme provides periodic meshes in an efficient manner, which are compatible for each pair of periodic boundaries of the RVE. Therefore, periodic boundary conditions for the RVE are enforced straightforwardly. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme for finite element modeling of complex composite structures.