Investigation of progressive damage and fracture in laminated composites using the smeared crack approach

摘要

The smeared crack approach (SCA) is revisited to describe post-peak softening in laminated composite materials. First, predictions of the SCA are compared against linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) based predictions for the debonding of an adhesively bonded double cantilever beam. A sensitivity analysis is performed to establish the influence of element size and cohesive strength on the load-deflection curves. The SCA is further validated by studying the in-plane fracture of a laminated composite. In doing so, issues related to mesh size and their effects (or non-effects) are discussed and compared against other predictive computational techniques. Finally, the SCA is specialized to or-thotropic materials. The application of the SCA is demonstrated for failure mechanics of the open hole tension test.