Case Study: Imperial College London achieves stronger, more damage‑tolerant composites and advanced graphene simulation with Dassault Systèmes' Abaqus FEA

Imperial College London - Customer Case Study

Imperial College London’s Department of Aeronautics, led by Professor Silvestre Pinho, faced the challenge of improving strength, fracture response and damage tolerance of composite materials and graphene by engineering micro- and nano-scale structures. To develop multi-scale simulation and analysis methods they used Abaqus finite element analysis (FEA) from SIMULIA, a solution within Dassault Systemes’ portfolio.

Using Dassault Systemes’ Abaqus, the team developed molecular-dynamics code, custom subroutines, mesh “handshake” techniques and hybrid Explicit/Standard workflows to couple micro- and macro-scale models while cutting computational time. The work significantly improved understanding of complex carbon-based materials, demonstrated designs with up to 560% of the baseline material’s fracture toughness, and even helped shape new Abaqus capabilities through close collaboration with SIMULIA.

Imperial College London

Silvestre Pinho

Professor