Advanced material models for damage and failure analysis of fiber reinforced composite structures

Thin walled composite structures made of laminates with stacks of plies including continuous fibres (like UD or fabrics) are used in aircrafts, wind turbines, naval and automotive applications. In order to propose predictive finite element simulation tools that are necessary to speed-up the time to market of new products, it is important to use material models that can accurately represent different failure modes at the ply level of a laminated composite structure. Additionally, damage at the ply interfaces, that is delamination, must also be taken into account in the model. Modelling progressive damage up to failure in laminated composite material is clearly a very difficult task