Test procedures for characterizing the orthotropic behavior of a unidirectional composite at room temperature and quasi-static loading conditions are developed and discussed. The resulting data consisting of 12 stress–strain curves and associated material parameters are used in a newly developed material model—an orthotropic elasto-plastic constitutive model that is driven by tabulated stress–strain curves and other material properties that allow for the elastic and inelastic deformation model to be combined with damage and failure models. A unidirectional composite—T800/F3900, commonly used in the aerospace industry, is used to illustrate how the experimental procedures are developed and used. The generated data are then used to model a dynamic impact test. Results show that the developed framework implemented into a special version of LS-DYNA yields reasonably accurate predictions of the structural behavior.

Abstract:A three-dimensional constitutive model has been developed for modeling orthotropic composites subject to impact loads. It has three distinct components-a deformation model involving elastic and plastic deformations; a damage model; and a failure model. The model is driven by tabular data that is generated either using laboratory tests or via virtual testing. A unidirectional composite-T800/F3900, commonly used in the aerospace industry, is used in the verification and validation tests. While the failure model is under development, these tests indicate that the implementation of the deformation and damage models in a commercial finite element program, LS-DYNA, is efficient, robust and accurate.

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The focus of this paper is the development of test procedures to characterize the damage-related behavior of a unidirectional composite at room temperature and quasi-static loading conditions and use the resulting data in the damage sub-model of a newly developed material model for orthotropic composites. This material model has three distinct sub-models to handle elastic and inelastic deformations, damage, and failure. A unidirectional composite—T800/F3900 that was the focus of our previous work, is used to illustrate how the deformation and damage-related experimental procedures are developed and used. The implementation of the damage sub-model into LS-DYNA is verified using single-element tests and validated using impact tests. Results show that the implementation yields reasonably accurate predictions of impact behavior involving deformation and damage in structural composites.

Theoretical and implementation details of an orthotropic plasticity model are presented. The model is comprised of three sub-models dealing with elastic and inelastic deformations, damage, and failure. The input to the three sub-models involves tabulated data that can be obtained from laboratory and/or virtual testing. In this article, the focus is on the development of the failure sub-model and its links to the other components. Details of how the user-selected failure criterion is used, and what steps are implemented post-failure are presented. The well-known Puck failure criterion is used in the numerical examples. Three validation tests are used to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the failure sub-model—10°, 15°, and 30° off-axis tests, a stacked-ply test carried out at room temperature under quasi-static loading, and finally, a high-speed impact test. Results indicate that while the deformation and damage sub-models give reasonably accurate results, the failure predictions are a huge challenge especially for high-speed impact tests.