Numerical Simulation of Damage Behavior of Fiber Reinforced Hydrogel Composite Sensor in Tensile Deformation Based on Direct FE2 Method

Hydrogels are polymer materials with network structure formed by the hydration of polymer chains, which have received extensive attention in the fields of biomedicine and flexible electronics. However, pure water gel materials have problems such as low strength and poor toughness. The mechanical properties of hydrogel materials can be improved as a whole by adding strong fibers into the hydrogel matrix to form hydrogel composites, so as to enhance the practical value of hydrogels. Although there have been a lot of research reports on fiber reinforced hydrogel composites, the deformation mechanism of hydrogel composites has not yet been clarified; Compared to research methods such as experiments and constitutive modeling, numerical simulation methods have the advantages of being able to better compensate for the shortcomings of both research methods; However, the systematic numerical study of the deformation of continuous fiber reinforced hydrogel composites using the traditional finite element method requires a huge computational cost. Therefore, this paper selects a dual scale method Direct FE
²
, which can not only better capture the evolution of composite microstructure, but also greatly improve the computational efficiency, to carry out systematic numerical simulation on the deformation and failure behavior of fiber reinforced hydrogel composites with different microstructure characteristics, and discusses the influence of fiber microstructure characteristics on the deformation and failure of hydrogel composites based on the simulation results. The research results can provide guidance for the design, manufacturing, and engineering service reliability of FRHC sensors.