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Computational Methods for Debonding in Composites

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158 F.P. van der Meer and L.J. Sluys<br />

Fig. 7.12 Interface damage<br />

near the notch tip at peak load<br />

level. The arrow <strong>in</strong>dicates the<br />

notch tip. Part of the mesh<br />

is shown, the arrow is scaled<br />

accord<strong>in</strong>gly (cf. Fig. 7.11)<br />

Fig. 7.13 Load displacement diagram and zoom of f<strong>in</strong>al de<strong>for</strong>med mesh (displacements <strong>in</strong> load<br />

direction only). The arrow <strong>in</strong>dicates the notch tip. Part of the mesh is shown, the arrow is scaled<br />

accord<strong>in</strong>gly (cf. Fig. 7.11)<br />

7.5 Discussion<br />

A model <strong>for</strong> mesoscale analysis of failure <strong>in</strong> composite lam<strong>in</strong>ates has been presented.<br />

An exist<strong>in</strong>g model <strong>for</strong> delam<strong>in</strong>ation has been comb<strong>in</strong>ed with a new soften<strong>in</strong>g<br />

plasticity model <strong>for</strong> lam<strong>in</strong>a failure. The comb<strong>in</strong>ed model is robust, due to a carefully<br />

designed stress evaluation algorithm and the use of a consistent tangent operator.<br />

The simulation of failure processes <strong>in</strong> lam<strong>in</strong>ates that <strong>in</strong>volve both <strong>in</strong>terply and<br />

<strong>in</strong>traply processes and their <strong>in</strong>teraction is possible with this model. In the analysis of<br />

a notched lam<strong>in</strong>ate a sequence of <strong>in</strong>teract<strong>in</strong>g failure events is simulated: the growth<br />

of a splitt<strong>in</strong>g crack <strong>in</strong> one of the plies, which is accommodated by delam<strong>in</strong>ation<br />

between this ply and its neighbor, and subsequently the tensile failure <strong>in</strong> all plies,<br />

which constitutes f<strong>in</strong>al failure of the lam<strong>in</strong>ate.<br />

In develop<strong>in</strong>g the soften<strong>in</strong>g model, several non-trivial choices had to be made.<br />

Firstly <strong>for</strong> the failure criterion. An <strong>in</strong>teractive criterion has been chosen <strong>for</strong> reasons<br />

of computational efficiency and robustness, <strong>in</strong> spite of the appeal<strong>in</strong>g physical motivation<br />

of failure mode based criteria. Secondly <strong>for</strong> the degradation law. The simplest<br />

possible <strong>for</strong>mulation with which complete local failure can be simulated has been<br />

chosen, with the motivation to keep the computation robust and to limit the number<br />

of <strong>in</strong>put parameters.<br />

Some drawbacks of the soften<strong>in</strong>g model <strong>in</strong> its current <strong>for</strong>m are that the direction<br />

of plastic stra<strong>in</strong> is often unrealistic result<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> spurious transverse stra<strong>in</strong>s, and that<br />

viscoplastic regularization is a method that is not clearly l<strong>in</strong>ked to physical phenomena.<br />

Furthermore, it would be ideal if fracture energy values measured <strong>in</strong> different<br />

uniaxial tests would be direct <strong>in</strong>put parameters <strong>for</strong> the material model, which is<br />

currently not the case.

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