16th International Conference on Composite Structures

ICCS 16
A. J. M. Ferreira (Editor)
FEUP, Porto, 2011
A STUDY OF EARLY-TIME RESPONSE IN DYNAMICALLY LOADED
VISCO-ELASTIC COMPOSITES
Karl Micallef
*
, Arash Soleiman-Fallah
*
, Paul T. Curtis

and Luke A. Louca

*

*
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus,
London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
e-mail: as3@imperial.ac.uk

Physical Sciences Department,

DSTL Porton Down, Salisbury,
Wilts, SP4 0JQ, United Kingdom
e-mail: ptcurtis@dstl.gov.uk

Key words: Composite materials, Spalling, Damping, Strain-rate effect, Wave propagation.
Summary. The aim of this study is to model the propagation of one-dimensional waves
caused by a short-duration dynamic load through a visco-elastic medium. Two types of
viscous effects are considered. The behaviour is described by means of partial differential
equations governing longitudinal body waves. Four pulse load shapes are considered and
four cases analysed, viz. an undamped system, a damped system, an undamped system with
strain-rate sensitivity and a damped system with strain-rate sensitivity.



1 INTRODUCTION
Spalling is an important failure mode in pulse-loaded fibre-reinforced laminated composite
structures. It triggers delamination which affects the through-thickness integrity of the
laminate and hinders the later integral plate response. A pulse load, such as blast, will cause
compressive waves to propagate through the thickness of such a material during its early-time
response. The reflected tensile stresses can potentially exceed the cohesive strength between
composite plies, causing debonding and mode I fracture thus a loss in stiffness which
adversely affects plate action under blast loads.

2 ANALYTICAL FORMULATION
Hyperbolic partial differential equations with one space variable give the analytical
solutions of displacement, stress and strain, where they exist, namely, for the first two cases:

(undamped vibration) (1)

(damped vibration) (2)

The analytical solutions were obtained from textbooks [1].
K. Micallef, A. S. Fallah, P. T. Curtis, L. A. Louca
2
3 FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATION
A high order isoparametric consistent Lagrangian finite element is used to model the wave
propagation. The model is verified using test data of a typical glass-vinylester composite [2].
The numerical solution is obtained using an explicit time-integration scheme. Excellent
temporal and spatial correlation with the analytical solution is achieved, within 90-95%
accuracy.

(a) (b) (c) (d)
Fig. 1: Stress-time plots for under a rectangular pulse load (a: Case 1, b: Case 2, c: Case 3, d: Case 4)

The weak-form Galerkin weighted residual method is adopted for solving the governing
differential equations for different cases which essentially means the one-dimensional wave
equation is extended to include damping and strain-rate effects:

(undamped vibration) (3)

(damped vibration) (4)

3 CONCLUSIONS
From this study, it is seen that damping leads to a decrease in peak stresses and strains by
up to 11% for 5% of critical damping, even during the direct loading phase. It is shown that
the inclusion of strain-rate did not have an effect on strains but led to an increase in stress by
almost 95%. The inclusion of both strain-rate and damping together led to an increase in
stresses of up to 70% when compared to the non-viscous cases.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is being funded jointly by the EPSRC (UK) and DSTL.
REFERENCES
[1] Polyanin, A.D., Handbook of linear partial differential equations for engineers and
scientists. 2002: Chapman & Hall/CRC Press.
[2] Daniel, I.M., Cho, J.-M., Werner, B.T., Fenner, J.S. Mechanical behaviour and failure
criteria of comosite materials under static and dynamic loading. in 50th
AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials
Conference. 2009. Palm Springs, California.