MULTISCALE PROGRESSIVE FAILURE ANALYSIS OF PLAIN-WOVEN COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Abstract

The paper presents an overview of multiscale modeling of advanced fibrous composite materials. Following the review, a nonlinear, fully three-dimensional, numerical model is proposed which is suitable for multiscale elastic and progressive failure analysis of plain-woven composite materials. The proposed model is developed for implementation into the Finite Element code ABAQUS/Explicit as a user-defined subroutine for constant stress (one integration point) solid elements. The multiscale strategy applied in this paper uses a closed-form solution approach for homogenization of the mesoscale properties of a woven composite. A mosaic model of the woven composite's Representative Volume Element (RVE) is used for deriving the micromechanical relations used for homogenization. The composite RVE model used herein is composed of UD interlacing yarns (fill and warp yarns) and matrix-rich regions. For failure and damage analysis, the following features are implemented in this work: material nonlinearity for pure in-plane shear deformation; physically-based failure criteria for matrix failure in the UD yarns; maximum stress failure criteria for failure of fibers in the UD yarns and of the pure matrix in the resin-rich regions and energy-based damage mechanics. The proposed strategy, which has been implemented and tested for a special case of an in-plane damage, has some evident advantages compared to the other approaches, especially for application to full-scale simulations, i.e., component and structural scales. A comparison of the proposed model with experimental data shows a good correlation can be achieved.