Computational design of actively-cooled microvascular composites for high temperature applications

A novel interface-enriched generalized finite element method^{1, 2} is employed to perform the computational design of actively-cooled microvascular woven composites to be used as part of a multi-layered, multi-material skin for hypersonic vehicles. The numerical scheme is able to capture accurately and efficiently the gradient discontinuity along the uid/solid interface and create a virtual model of the composite's microstructure without using meshes that conform to the geometry of the problem. Determining the optimal configuration of the embedded microchannels that most effciently contributes to active cooling of the material can be then accomplished with a single non-conforming mesh, which significantly reduces the computational cost of the analysis.