Ronald D. Kriz
Recent advances in Scanning Acoustic Microscopy (SAM) have allowed researchers to evaluate the distribution of elastic properties in heterogeneous anisotropic composites. From SAM images material researchers can better predict tolerance of these materials to crack growth. Unfortunately much of the information in these SAM images lack a physical interpretation. The use of a numerical simulation with visualization can assist the material researcher in the analysis and interpretation of SAM experimental results. Because each material system has a unique structure, the corresponding numerical Finite Element Model (FEM) simulation requires a large refined mesh to model these irregular and unique structures. With such large meshes less approximations are made and more realistic results can be obtained. With scalable metacenter resources parametric studies in realtime with appropriate simulation-visualization techniques can be used by material researchers to physically interpret SAM images and suggest new nondestructive evaluation (NDE) test methods.
Most of our efforts to date have been focused on developing an efficient 3-D FEM code for simulating wave propagation in simple homogeneous anisotropic materials. With this 3-D model we can simulate the propagation of acoustic energy in a representative heterogeneous unit-cell of a fiber-polymer-interphase composite material. Results from such a study can have significant impact on how new advanced fiber-reinforced composites are fabricated for optimal design performance. With scalable computing on campus linked via a high speed network with a CAVE environemnt we will create an interactive realtime visual computing environment that will allow the design engineer to experiment with design paramenters interactively in CAVE. All visual processing will be accomplished in "realtime" during the actual model simuation such that parametric studies can be accomplished in "realtime".