Progressive Fracture of Blade Containment Composite Structures

Damage progression and penetration of blade containment composite structures due to impact load is evaluated by using computational simulation. An integrated computer code (CODSTRAN) was modified to simulate the progressive damage and penetration of composite structures under impacting loading. The objective of this work is to describe the modification required in order to evaluate the response of a containment fiber composite structure hit by an escaped blade. The simulation traces the history of damage initiation, growth, accumulation, progression and propagation to containment or penetration. Results show that the initial velocity of the escaped blade determines the damage initiation, propagation and containment or penetration containment composite structure of specified laminate thickness and configuration.