Group of mechanics of materials

Group Remmers

Our research group studies the mechanical properties of complex, engineered materials such as fibre reinforced composites and 3D printed materials for lightweight automotive and aerospace applications. In addition, we investigate the mechanical behaviour and fluid flow in fractured porous materials. In all these cases, we develop novel numerical techniques using our own in-house developed Finite Element codes.

Research Profile

The performance of engineered materials such as composites and 3D printed materials can be improved significantly by studying the evolution of their complex microstructures using advanced numerical techniques.

Meet some of our Researchers

Doctoral Candidate

Tom Lenders

Associate Professor

Joris Remmers

Doctoral Candidate

Bram Dorussen

Doctoral Candidate

Britt Cordewener

Tommaso Pini

Doctoral Candidate

Anqi Li

Former PhD students supervised

V. Valliappan

A numerical study on the effect of anisotropy and heterogeneity on hydraulic fractures

J. Schormans

Deformation and failure of woven and 3D composites

S. Hosseini

Numerical simulation of damage mechanisms in composite materials

F. Irzal

The role of fluid in fractured porous media

N. Irani

Finite strain discrete dislocation plasticity: applications and new developments

J.M.J. Schormans

Deformation and failure of woven and 3D composites

E.W. Remij

Fluid driven and mechanically induced fracture propagation: theory and numerical simulations

R.A. van Tuijl

Wavelet Based Reduced Order Methods

J. DING

Propagating fractures in swelling ionized hydrogels: XFEM analysis

Research themes

Theme 1: Composite materials

Theme 2: 3D Printed materials

Theme 3: Fractures in porous media

Theme 4: Advanced numerical techniques

Student opportunities

Education is at the heart of our research group. We are offering bachelor and master courses, bachelor and master thesis projects and internship projects.

Software

In order to develop new numerical technique, an in-house developed software platform is a prerequisite. In our research we therefore make extensive use of our own software tools: Dawn and PyFEM. Dawn is our working horse. The development of this C++ finite element code was started in 2002 and now comprises of a variety of element formulations, materials and solver techniques, most of which are not available in commercial or open-source codes. Dawn is built using the Jem-Jive libraries that are developed by Erik Jan Lingen (Dynaflow).

Specific advanced numerical techniques that are incorporated in Dawn are:

  • The partition of unity method (X-FEM)
  • Isogeometric Analysis using the Bezier Extraction technique
  • Model Order Reduction techniques and Wavelet integration
  • Simulation of Additive Manufacturing processes
  • Discrete Dislocations

PyFEM is a small open source finite element code, written in Python 3.0 that we mainly use for prototyping new algorithms and in our educational program. PyFEM was originally developed to accompany the book: 

R. de Borst, M.A. Crisfield, J.J.C. Remmers and C.V. Verhoosel
Non-Linear Finite Element Analysis of Solids and Structures
John Wiley and Sons, 2012, ISBN 978-0470666449

The entire code can be downloaded from the following Github location.

Past events

Composites 2017

Recent Publications

Our most recent peer reviewed publications

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