Abstract

FIRMAIN project abstract :

Many recent works have shown that organic matrices employed to produce composite materials are hydrophilic. It is thus of first importance to study the moisture diffusion process within these materials since it leads to a significant drop of the mechanical properties and to relevant internal mechanical states. Those high internal stresses may then favor the material damage leading, for instance, to crack propagations within the matrix. Moreover, the complex physic of the problem is submitted to significant uncertainties which should be taken into account when one seeks robust predictions. The project aims at linking recent and efficient numerical approaches in order to study the coupling between water diffusion and damage; the proposed techniques will be extended to the stochastic framework.