Transverse failure of composite materials

PROJECT TITLE: MULTISCALE MODELING OF TRANSVERSE FAILURE OF UNIDIRECTIONAL COMPOSITES

PARTICIPANTS: SCOTT ZACEK (MS), DR. MASOUD SAFDARI, DAVID BRANDYBERRY (PHD), ANGEL AGRAWAL (MS), CHRIS MONTGOMERY (PHD), PROF. NANCY SOTTOS (U. ILLINOIS) AND PROF. PHILIPPE GEUBELLE

COLLABORATING INSTITUTIONS: JOHNS HOPKINS U. (PROF. SOMNATH GHOSH), U.C. SANTA BARBARA, AIR FORCE RESEARCH LABS (DR GEORGE JEFFERSON, DR. CRAIG PRZYBYLA, DR. DHRITI NEPAL)

SUPPORT: AFRL/AFOSR, CENTER OF EXCELLENCE IN MODELING OF MATERIALS

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: In collaboration with AFRL researchers, we are advancing the state of the art in the multiscale modeling of transverse failure in carbon-epoxy composite laminates, which is often a precursor for other, more critical failure processes such as inter-ply delamination and fiber breakage. Some of the key accomplishments so far include the development of a new enriched finite element scheme allowing for the simulation of the failure response of realistic laminates with thousands of closely-packed fibers, and the extraction of shape and material sensitivities of the failure event on microstructural properties. Experimental validation experiments are being conducted in Nancy Sottos’ group at Illinois.

Transverse cracking of a [0/90/0] composite laminate.

Crack path detail, showing that most of the transverse cracking takes place along the fiber-matrix interfaces.

IGFEM simulation of transverse cracking in a virtual specimen composed of more than 500 closely packed fibers. The fiber distribution is taken directly from optical images.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS:

  1. Safdari, M., Najafi, A., Sottos, N. R., and Geubelle, P. H. (2015) “A NURBS-based interface-enriched generalized finite element method for problems with complex discontinuous gradient field.” International Journal of Numerical Methods in Engineering, 101, 950-964. DOI: 10.1002/nme.4852.
  2. Safdari, M., Sottos, N. R., and Geubelle, P. H. (2016) “A NURBS-based generalized finite element scheme for 3D simulation of heterogeneous materials.” Journal of Computational Physics, 318, 373-390.

  3. Zacek, S., Brandyberry, D., Montgomery, C., Shakiba, M., Rossol, M., Najafi, A., Sottos, N., Geubelle, P. H., Przybyla, C., and Jefferson, G. (2017) “Transverse failure of unidirectional composites: sensitivity to interfacial properties.” Submitted.

  4. ZACEK, Scott (AE) Impact of microstructural statistics on the failure of unidirectional composites. M.S. Thesis. P. H. Geubelle, adviser (2017).