Abstract
This work presents a transdisciplinary, integrated approach that uses computational mechanics experiments with a flow network strategy to gain fundamental insights into the stress flow of high-performance, lightweight, structured composites by investigating the rostrum of paddlefish. Although computational mechanics experiments give an overall distribution of stress in the structural systems, stress flow patterns formed at nascent stages of loading a biostructure are hard to determine. Computational mechanics experiments on a complex model will involve a high degree of freedom thereby making the extraction of finer details computationally expensive. To address this challenge, the evolution of the stress in the rostrum is formulated as a network flow problem generated by extracting the node and connectivity information from the numerical model of the rostrum. The flow network is weighted based on the parameter of interest, which is stress in the current research. The changing kinematics of the system is provided as input to the mathematical algorithm that computes the minimum cut of the flow network. The flow network approach is verified using two simple classical problems. When applied to the model of the rostrum, the flow network approach identifies strain localization in tensile regions, and buckling/crushing in compressive regions.
Highlights
A fundamental understanding of the response of a structural system to external loading conditions is important in determining if the design is able to withstand the prescribed external load
Finite element analysis has been used to study the mechanical properties of bioinspired structures
Since biostructures are geometrically optimized at the coarsest level of hierarchy, the information obtained at the local topology level provides insights that could be used to identify optimal geometrical configurations that impart superior characteristics to biostructures
Summary
A fundamental understanding of the response of a structural system to external loading conditions is important in determining if the design is able to withstand the prescribed external load. Tran et al [26] conducted a study to analyze the response of a bioinspired composite plate based on nacre structure subjected to underwater impulsive loading. These abstractions involve representing the system in terms of a transmission medium and the internal details that block the information flow, i.e., flow bottlenecks From this viewpoint, maximum flow and minimum cut are two of the most widely used algorithmic approaches in network flow theory [27]. If the location of the failure is identified earlier, there is a possibility of developing a relationship that aids in quantifying the external force required for the structural system to fail at that location This knowledge can be used for designing new structural systems, and for the assessment of existing critical infrastructure.
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