Strength prediction of woven composite rings using progressive damage modeling

The ultimate failure of the woven composite pipes has been investigated using progressive damage modeling. The composite pipe specimens were made of (E) glass plain weave fabrics according to the ASTM D2290 standard. The hoop strength of these specimens has been obtained from the tensile tests. The damage initiation and propagation of composite pipe have been predicted by a numerical multi-scale method. For this purpose, the damage of the yarns and resin of the plain weave laminate was investigated by modeling a representative volume element. Then, the macroscopic stresses and strains of the representative volume element were calculated to obtain the equivalent stiffness matrix using suitable boundary conditions. Then, the mechanical properties of the laminate and material properties degradation coefficients were derived by this equivalent stiffness matrix. Hashin and Von Mises failure criteria were utilized in USDLFD subroutine to predict the damage initiation of the yarn and resin in the representative volume element, respectively. The sudden degradation method has been used to investigate the damage propagation in these constituents. Then, the woven composite ring was modeled in ABAQUS software and its ultimate strength was predicted by UMAT subroutine using obtained degradation coefficients of the representative volume element from the previous step. Finally, the numerical results were compared with the experimental data which show good agreement between the results.