Evaluation of Delamination Energy Release Rates by Layerwise Higher-Order Finite Element

摘要

As quite well-known, composite laminates exhibit a variety of failure and damage phenomena which conventional homogeneous, isotropic materials do not experience, such as fiber breakage, matrix cracking, delamination and their combinations. In particular, delamination is one of the most feared failures for structural reliability of composite laminates. Therefore, a precise and reliable numerical tool for evaluating the delamination properties of composite laminates is becoming of more and more importance. Although numerous finite element models have been applied to delamination modelings and the strain energy release rate calculations, almost all of them are limited to some two-dimensional (2-D) or quasi-three-dimensional (quasi-3-D), local regions in the laminates [1-3]. Consequently, in the context with respect to delamination modelings and the strain energy release rate calculations, multi-layered (layerwise) plate/shell finite elements [4-6] will serve as one of the most attracting models for this purpose because they are capable of evaluating delamination properties of fully 3-D, arbitrary shaped composite laminates with various kinds of delamination failures. In this study, a delamination modelings and the energy release rate calculations by the layerwise higher-order plate element of the authors [5] is presented.