Computational Investigation of through the Width Delamination of a Composite Laminate using Surface based Cohesive Contact Behaviour

Abstract

The fiber reinforced polymer laminates have found extensive applications because of its advantages over other materials in terms of strength to weight ratio, manufacturing flexibility and so on. But in the transverse direction, strength is comparatively less so that a failure mechanism called delamination will occur in case of poor manufacturing or when tools are dropped. In this paper, Surface based Cohesive contact behavior is implemented at the interface between base and sub laminate to investigate for 60mm through the width buckling driven delamination growth. The computational prediction of delamination growth initiation is obtained by solving a HTA/6376C composite laminate specimen for geometric non linearity using SC8R continuum shell elements of Abaqus CAE and by plotting the inplane loads versus out of plane displacements.