Three-point bending analysis with cohesive surface interaction for improved delamination prediction and application of carbon fibre reinforced plastics composites

Abstract

Carbon fibre reinforced plastics laminates were loaded through to fracture in a three-point bending configuration, to gain understanding of the cohesive interaction between plies and validate mechanical properties and predictive capability of the FE model. The effect of mesh refinement, scaling techniques, failure models and cohesive surfaces were investigated. Fibre orientations investigated were parallel, 45° and perpendicular to the loading. Experimental results showed a larger radius punch promoted failure on the intended bottom side, tensile stresses region, allowing for the Aramis strain camera to record the failure. When the fibre orientation was perpendicular to the punch load, all failure models show similar rate of force increment with respect to displacement. No difference in failure prediction is observed for the different 0° models, except for a 4.18% under prediction by LaRC02 compared to the experiment. With fibre orientations at 45° and 90°, the Maximum Strain and LaRCO2 failure models were more suitable in terms of accuracy and convergence. Incorporating cohesive surfaces between instances improve nonlinearity prediction of 45° and 90° layups. Small span-to-thickness ratio analysis predicts interlaminar shear failure, delamination, versus large span-to-thickness ratio determine normal stresses to dominate failure in laminate. The model was setup in multi-fibre orientation and cross-ply layups for extended application and was shown to successfully predict material response described in literature.

Numerical modeling of fiber reinforced polymer textile composites for characterizing the mechanical behavior – a review

“…The specimens were free to skid on lower cylinders. The test simulation is performed to understand the cohesive force between the two laminates [102]. The flexural test is perform to understand the bending behavior of composite laminates.…”

3D Finite Element Model on Drilling of CFRP with Numerical Optimization and Experimental Validation

“…Significant work has developed numerous additional failure models including LaRC02 [ 38 , 39 ], Max Strain, Max Stress, Tsai-Wu [ 40 ], Tsai-Hill [ 41 ], Christensen [ 42 ], Puck et al [ 43 ], and a Multi-Continuum Theory (MCT) [ 44 ] failure criterion. The formulation and advantages of these failure models are described in previous literature [ 32 , 33 ]. In this research, a user-defined material subroutine was implemented into ABAQUS to utilize failure criteria alternative to the built-in Hashin method for FRPs.…”

“…The sample is subdivided with 10 plies to facilitate cohesive surface interactions. The material properties for the CFRP were determined and validated through tensile and three-point bending experiments and FE models at various fibre orientations [ 32 , 33 ].…”

“…Node sets are created for the top and bottom surfaces to be used with the cohesive interactions. Individual property assignments are created for the cohesive surface interactions based on prior experiments; details are described in [ 32 , 33 ].…”

“…The objective of this work was to progress the development of a macro FE drilling model to be used as a tool to accurately test various drill geometries with reasonable computation time. To substantially reduce computational time, numerical analysis was preformed to investigate the influence of mass scaling, bulk viscosity, friction, strain rate strengthening, and cohesive surface modelling, building on intra-ply and inter-ply progressive failure modelling techniques developed in [ 32 , 33 ]. Experimental work was carried out to investigate the effect of of drill tip geometries on drilling forces and hole quality and to validate FE model prediction capabilities.…”