MULTI-SCALE, NONLINEAR, PROGRESSIVE FAILURE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN TOOL FOR THICK-SECTION COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

摘要

The failure analysis of thick-section composite structures using the finite element method is avaluable step in the design process. With an infinite array of layups and material combinationsavailable when creating these structures, it is important to determine the best pairing of materialand stacking sequence for the current application. Modeling multi-layered laminate structuresusing an equivalent set of linear properties for the composite is often insufficient for capturing itsactual response. A more accurate approach is to account for ply-level anisotropic nonlinearityand ply-based failure criteria of the composite material. However, this level of detail requiresthe modeling and tracking of ply-level stresses and strains of the laminated structure. Discretelymodeling individual plies in a large scale, thick-section composite structure with hundreds ofplies is neither practical nor computationally feasible. A novel multi-scale computationalframework, LAMPATNL, was recently established to homogenize the composite laminate whileaccounting for ply level material nonlinearity and progressive failure without explicitlysimulating the individual plies [1]. This approach accurately simulates the response andprogressive failure of laminated composite structures and provides visualization of critical,composite-specific design parameters. This paper documents the development, validation andapplication of this multi-scale computational framework for modeling the nonlinear response andprogressive failure and of large scale, thick-section composite structures. A case study is used toillustrate the utility of this valuable design tool.