Computational Investigation of Square Embedded Delamination of a Composite Laminate using Surface based Cohesive Contact Behavior

Abstract

The fiber reinforced polymer laminates have found extensive applications because of its advantages over other materials in terms of thrust to weight ratio, strength to weight ratio, manufacturing benefits such as tailoring, resistance to erosion and corrosion and so on. In the transverse direction, strength, stiffness and stability are comparatively less so that a failure mechanism called interface delamination comes into picture due to poor manufacturing or when tools are dropped that would create an impact load. In this paper, Surface based Cohesive contact behavior is implemented at the interface between base and sub laminate to investigate for 60mm square embedded 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.