The long-term properties of continuous fiber reinforced composite materials are increasingly important as applications in airplanes, cars, and other safety critical structures are growing rapidly. Although a clear understanding has been established for initiation, growth and accumulation of damage, it is still unclear when and how the interactions of these local events lead to the development of a “critical” fracture path resulting in a sudden change of global properties and possible rupture. In the present paper, we simulate damage development in a neat polymeric resin using X-FEM analysis, and conduct concomitant dielectric response analysis with a COMSOLTM simulation model to study the collective defect structure as it develops in a model system. Our studies reveal inflection points in the predicted global dielectric response vs. strain that are related to changes in local damage growth rates and modes that clearly indicate impending fracture and capture the progressive change in material state.
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