A study of transverse cracking in laminates by the Thick Level Set approach

International audienceIn this paper, we present an analysis of the transverse cracking and interface failure process in- duced in layered materials (such as composite laminates) subjected to tensile loading, with a new level set based non-local modeling approach for damage growth (TLS: Thick Level Set). In particular, a 2D finite element model is built to study damage in a cross-ply laminate. The study aims at evaluating the capacity of the TLS method to predict evolution of damage at the ply level, including initiation, propagation, merging of cracks or delamination. We show how this numerical model is able to reproduce key features such as crack spacing saturation and other experimental observations