Constitutive Relationships for Laminates with Ply Cracks in In-plane Loading

A theoretical framework which allows determining the whole set of 2-D thermomechanical constants of a damaged laminate as a function of crack density in different layers is presented. In this approach, closed-form expressions, which contain thermoelastic ply properties, laminate layup, and crack density as the input information are obtained. It is shown that the crack opening displacement (COD) and crack face sliding displacement, normalized with respect to a load variable, are important parameters in these expressions influencing the level of the properties degradation. They are determined in this paper using generalized plain strain FEM analysis results for noninteractive cracks. The strong dependence of the COD on the relative stiffness and thickness of the surrounding layers, found in this study, is described by a power law. The methodology is validated and the possible error introduced by the noninteractive crack assumption is estimated by comparing with the 3-D FEM solution for a cross-ply laminate with two orthogonal systems of ply cracks. Experimental data and comparison with other models are used for further verification.