Computational Methods for the Prediction of Emergence and Growth of Delaminations in Laminated Composite Components

摘要

Laminates made from fiber reinforced polymers have become increasingly important over the past years due to their great potential for weight saving. In order to fully exploit the advantages of such laminates accurate and reliable methods are required to predict their response to service loads. The objective of this thesis is to improve and develop modeling tools that are adequate for the computational simulation of delaminations in laminated structures. For the treatment of emergence of delaminations an approach that combines a strength criterion with an energy release rate criterion is developed. For the prediction of delamination growth approaches based on linear elastic fracture mechanics are proposed and delaminations with straight and curved fronts are handled. For verification of the developed approaches emergence and growth of delaminations in L-shaped laminates is analyzed Computational predictions are compared to results from experimental tests and good agreement is found.