Publications

Testing of constitutive models in LAME

Scherzinger, William M.; Hammerand, Daniel C.

Constitutive models for computational solid mechanics codes are in LAME--the Library of Advanced Materials for Engineering. These models describe complex material behavior and are used in our finite deformation solid mechanics codes. To ensure the correct implementation of these models, regression tests have been created for constitutive models in LAME. A selection of these tests is documented here. Constitutive models are an important part of any solid mechanics code. If an analysis code is meant to provide accurate results, the constitutive models that describe the material behavior need to be implemented correctly. Ensuring the correct implementation of constitutive models is the goal of a testing procedure that is used with the Library of Advanced Materials for Engineering (LAME) (see [1] and [2]). A test suite for constitutive models can serve three purposes. First, the test problems provide the constitutive model developer a means to test the model implementation. This is an activity that is always done by any responsible constitutive model developer. Retaining the test problem in a repository where the problem can be run periodically is an excellent means of ensuring that the model continues to behave correctly. A second purpose of a test suite for constitutive models is that it gives application code developers confidence that the constitutive models work correctly. This is extremely important since any analyst that uses an application code for an engineering analysis will associate a constitutive model in LAME with the application code, not LAME. Therefore, ensuring the correct implementation of constitutive models is essential for application code teams. A third purpose of a constitutive model test suite is that it provides analysts with example problems that they can look at to understand the behavior of a specific model. Since the choice of a constitutive model, and the properties that are used in that model, have an enormous effect on the results of an analysis, providing problems that highlight the behavior of various constitutive models to the engineer can be of great benefit. LAME is currently implemented in the Sierra based solid mechanics codes Adagio [3] and Presto [4]. The constitutive models in LAME are available in both codes. Due to the nature of a transient dynamics code--e.g. Presto--it is difficult to test a constitutive model due to inertia effects that show up in the solution. Therefore the testing of constitutive models is primarily done in Adagio. All of the test problems detailed in this report are run in Adagio. It is the goal of the constitutive model test suite to provide a useful service for the constitutive model developer, application code developer and engineer that uses the application code. Due to the conflicting needs and tight time constraints on solid mechanics code development, no requirements exist for implementing test problems for constitutive models. Model developers are strongly encouraged to provide test problems and document those problems, but given the choice of having a model without a test problem or no model at all, certain requirements must be kept loose. A flexible code development environment, especially with regards to research and development in constitutive modeling, is essential to the success of such an environment. This report provides documentation of a number of tests for the constitutive models in LAME. Each section documents a separate test with a brief description of the model, the test problem and the results. This report is meant to be updated periodically as more test problems are created and put into the test suite.