Identification of Fracture Toughness for Discrete Damage Mechanics Analysis of Glass-Epoxy Laminates

Abstract

A methodology for determination of the intralaminar fracture toughness is presented, based on fitting discrete damage mechanics (DDM) model predictions to available experimental data. DDM is constitutive model that, when incorporated into commercial finite element software via user material subroutines, is able to predict intralaminar transverse and shear damage initiation and evolution in terms of the fracture toughness of the composite. The applicability of the DDM model is studied by comparison to available experimental data for Glass-Epoxy laminates. Sensitivity of the DDM model to h- and p-refinement is studied. Also, the effect of in-situ correction of strength is highlighted.