Peridynamic modeling of perforated structures in a finite element framework

This study presents an approach for predicting the displacement and stress fields in fully-periodic or partially-periodic perforated structures. Employing the concepts from micromechanics and mechanics of structural genome, a perforated structure can be modeled as an imperforated structure by employing traditional finite elements with effective material properties. The effective material property matrix is determined by applying the peridynamic unit cell model to the repeating perforation (cell). The prediction of stress field and failure process in the critical region is achieved by constructing its PD model subjected to displacement constraints from the analysis of imperforated structure. Both the PD and FE analyses are performed by employing only the built-in elements of a commercial finite element software, ANSYS.