Topic of Invited talk
Fiber-Based Continuum Analysis for Textile Composites
Biography
Woong-Ryeol Yu, Professor and Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea, earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Fiber and Polymer Science from Seoul National University (SNU). He broadened his international academic experience as a Visiting Research Associate at Michigan State University (2001–2003), a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham (2003–2004), and a Visiting Professor at the University of Delaware (2008–2009). Since 2004, he has served as Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at SNU, where he also held the position of Department Head (2021–2023). Professor Yu is currently Senior Vice President of the Korean Society for Composite Materials and Editor-in-Chief ofFunctional Composites and Structures (IOP). His research focuses on textile composites, smart polymers, and carbon nanomaterials, with particular emphasis on constitutive modeling and continuum analysis for advanced structural and functional materials. To date, he has published more than 200 SCI-indexed papers and filed around 40 patents, establishing him as a leading figure in the field of composite materials and polymer engineering.
Summary
Fiber-reinforced composites exhibit strongly anisotropic mechanical behavior governed by fiber orientation, length, interfacial load transfer, and textile architecture. This lecture presents a fiber-based continuum analysis framework that preserves these essential fiber-level characteristics while enabling efficient structural-scale simulation. The fundamental concepts are introduced through the strength analysis of unidirectional composites, in which interfacial shear strength has competing effects on load transfer and multiple fiber fracture. The framework is subsequently extended to deformable textile composites through non-orthogonal constitutive equations and continuous updating of fiber orientation, anisotropic stiffness, damage initiation, and property degradation during deformation.For injection-molded short-fiber-reinforced plastics, fiber orientation distributions are represented by pseudograins and incorporated into a two-step homogenization framework for predicting anisotropic deformation and progressive failure. Machine-learning-assisted decomposition, coupled fiber length–orientation modeling, and neural-network constitutive surrogates improve the accuracy and efficiency of component-scale finite-element simulations.The methodology is further applied to braided and 3D woven composites containing through-thickness reinforcement. Fiber-based analysis captures yarn reorientation, damage initiation, and stiffness degradation, while controlled z-binder interlacing and selective yarn deficiency enable seamless complex-shaped, sandwich, and multi-channel structures. These integrated approaches improve structural continuity, delamination resistance, and damage tolerance, providing a unified link between fiber architecture, manufacturing, and structural performance.
