Meshfree simulation of progressive damage in composite laminates using discrete element analysis

Abstract

This study presents a Discrete Element Method (DEM) for a meshfree progressive failure analysis of IM7/8552 carbon fibre reinforced polymer laminates at the macroscale. By implementing a cohesive contact model to describe progressive damage, experimental results from over-height compact tension (OCT) tests are used to calibrate the required input parameters in the DEM contact model. The simulation of various open-hole tension (OHT) test specimens validates the presented DEM model with minimal errors in strength predictions of up to 4%. Discrete Element Method results are directly compared to those obtained from finite element (FE) models. It is demonstrated that DEM is able to seemingly incorporate damage evolution leading to realistic macroscopic damage patterns, however the computational cost is increased by a factor of 100 compared to FE simulations.