Effect of Regularization on Efficient Modeling and Simulation of Bioinspired Composites Using Cohesive Zone Method.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Computational Mechanics
• Bioinspired Materials

Background:

• Tessellation-based microstructures (Voronoi, Laguerre) model bioinspired composites.
• Geometric degeneracies (short edges, sliver faces) impede meshing and simulations.
• Cohesive-zone simulations of interfacial fracture are computationally intensive.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate a geometric regularization step for tessellation-based microstructures.
• To quantify the impact of regularization on finite element discretization and cohesive fracture simulation.
• To enable efficient and large-scale simulations of bioinspired composites.

Main Methods:

• Geometric regularization enforcing minimum feature length before meshing.
• Systematic quantification of regularization impact on meshing and simulation performance.
• Application to a 3D bioinspired organic-inorganic composite with cohesive interfaces.

Main Results:

• Regularized tessellations show improved edge-length and face-diameter distributions.
• Meshability significantly improved, enabling practical resolutions.
• Reduced element counts (nearly 5x) and increased stable time increment (4 orders of magnitude).
• Transformed a diverging analysis into a robust, converging simulation.

Conclusions:

• Geometric regularization is critical for efficient, large-scale cohesive fracture simulations.
• This preprocessing step overcomes limitations of traditional tessellation methods.
• Enables robust computational modeling of complex bioinspired material interfaces.