A pyramidal damage modelling for laminates composites - Illustrations using abaqus -

The optimal and safe design of composite material does not only require the prediction of the ultimate failure load, but also the understanding of the relative development of the mechanisms until the final breaking. Such a refined modelling is difficult to access directly by a classical phenomenological approach on the meso or on the macro scales for which damage laws are written a priori and then experimentally identified. A better solution is to start from a modelling on the fine scale with strong physical basis, and then establishing the damage modelling by using clear bridges between the descriptions. A damage mechanics modelling for laminated composites is presented here in that framework. We only focus on the intralaminar part of the modelling. The key points (1) each mechanism (fiber failure, fiber-matrix debonding, transverse cracking, .. . ) of degradation can be monitored separately and (2) at least for one part, the damage laws are no more phenomenological but are obtained but the rigourous homogeneization of underlying micromechanical degradation schemes. In fact, that modelling is a part of a pyramidal approach developed at the laboratory in which optimal approach of description is used from the very fine scale to the scale of the application. Finally, the approach can be easily implemented within the formalism of industrial softwares as for example here in Abaqus Standard.