A computational study about the effects of ply cracking and delamination on the stiffness reduction of damaged lamina and laminate

Accurate prediction of stiffness degradation in the damaged plies (laminae) is a fundamental requirement for developing damage models for composite materials. In this study, a mesoscale analysis is proposed to predict all the effective thermo-elastic constants of damaged plies containing ply cracks and delaminations based on a numerical homogenization method. To do so, the in-plane and out-of-plane loading conditions are imposed on the three-dimensional representative volume elements (RVEs) using the periodic boundary conditions (PBCs). Considering the stress/strain fields obtained from the numerical simulations, the effective behavior of the damaged plies is evaluated. Moreover, the effects of various damage configurations, material properties, orientations of adjacent plies and ply thicknesses are studied to address the dependency of the effective elastic constants to those parameters. Numerical results reveal that the ply cracking and delaminations significantly reduce the in-plane and out-of-plane properties ([Formula: see text], [Formula: see text],[Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]) of the damaged plies. Furthermore, to demonstrate the accuracy and capability of the developed homogenization method, the homogenized properties of the damaged plies are used in the intact laminates where the stiffness of such laminates are compared with direct FE simulation and available experimental data of the laminates containing ply cracks and local delamination.