Analysis of nonlinear shear and damage behaviour of angle-ply laminates with Direct FE2

Abstract In this paper, non-linear shear and damage behaviour of angled ply laminates is studied and simulated with the Direct FE2 approach. The FE2 method allows dual scale modelling of composite laminates by coupling micromechanical models of Representative Volume Element (RVE) of unidirectional fibre reinforced polymer composite with a macroscale laminate level model. Angled ply laminates under uniaxial tension are chosen because their non-linear behaviour arises from matrix plasticity and fibre reorientation under tension in addition to constituent damage and becomes important particularly for large deformation. This requires additional effort to account for fibre rotation to existing homogenized ply damage models. The FE2 approach requires only constituent (matrix and reinforcement) properties as input, thus removing the need for homogenized laminate and ply-level constitutive properties. At the macroscale, the FE2 model gave good prediction of experimental stress-strain response of laminates under uniaxial tension, while concurrently, the microscale RVEs captured fibre rotation, micro-cracks and fibre rupture.