Numerical modeling of the hygro-mechanical behavior of the 3D composite materials

Abstract

The composite materials used in marine environments are subjected to mechanical loads along with the water absorption. The analysis of the behavior of such materials requires to take into account the coupling between the mechanical and diffusion behaviors. The hygro-mechanical coupling has been widely investigated experimentally and numerically. This paper presents a numerical approach to model the hygro-mechanical coupling of composite materials. The diffusion process is modeled via the classical Fick’s law. The elasticity matrix is considered to belong to transverse isotropic class, i.e. the composite studied is a unidirectional one. The components of the former are considered as moisture content dependent. The constitutive law takes into account on the one hand the strain induced by the hygroscopic swelling and on the other hand the dependence of the mechanical properties (elastic constants along with the material ultimate strengths) on the moisture content. These are implemented in a finite element software used to investigate the influence of the hygro-mechanical coupling on the composite material behavior. The robustness of our numerical tool is investigated with some numerical case studies.