SHEAR DEGRADATION IN FIBER REINFORCED LAMINATES DUE TO MATRIX DAMAGE

Thesis (Ph.D.), School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State UniversityThe objective of this study was to develop and implement a shear modulus degradation model to improve the failure analysis of the fiber reinforced composite structures. Matrix damage, involving transverse and shear cracks, is a common failure mode for composite structures, yet little is known concerning their interaction. To understand the material behavior after matrix failure, the nonlinear response of the composite laminate was studied using pressure vessels made from a [±ө] bias orientation, which tend to exhibit a matrix dominated failure. The result of this work showed laminate matrix hardening in shear and softening in the transverse direction.A modified Iosipescu coupon was proposed to study the evolution of shear and transverse damage and their mutual effects. The proposed method showed good agreement with tubular results and has advantages of simplified specimen fabrication using standard test fixtures. The proposed method was extended by introducing a novel experimental technique to study the shear degradation model under biaxial loading. Experimental results of the transverse modulus reduction were in good agreement with material degradation models, while the predicted shear modulus reduction was higher than experiment. The discrepancy between available models and observations was due to the presence of a traction between the crack surfaces. Accordingly, a closed form solution was proposed for the shear stress-strain field of a cracked laminate by replacing the cracks with cohesive zones. The constitutive equations of the crack laminate were derived including the effects of internal tractions and transverse stress on the shear modulus. The proposed analytical model was shown to be the most comprehensive model for shear modulus degradation reduction of the fiber reinforced laminates. A numerical implementation of the shear degradation model was done using continuum damage mechanics. Through this work it was shown the common assumption of a linear relation between matrix damage variables do not sufficiently describe shear response. Therefore, a modified damage model for matrix failure was developed and implemented in ABAQUS using a UMAT subroutine.School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State Universit