Microplane model for composite laminates

G. Cusatis1 , Z.P. Ba ant2 , A. Beghini3 z

1

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 4048 Johnsson Engineering Center, 110 Eighth St, Troy, NY, USA cusatg@rpi.edu
2

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL, USA z-bazant@northwestern.edu Skidmore, Owings & Merril LLP 224 S. Michigan Av. Chicago, IL, USA alessandro.beghini@som.com
3

Summary: This paper presents the spectral stiffness microplane (SSM) model, which is a general constitutive model for composite laminates, able to simulate the orthotropic stiffness, pre-peak nonlinearity, failure envelopes, post-peak softening and fracture. The model is veried by comparisons with experimental data for uniaxial and biaxial tests of unidirectional and multidirectional laminates

Introduction

eigenstrains. In the case of isotropic materials, these orthogonal modes represents the volumetric and deviatoric deformation Various theories can be found in the literature for the descrip- modes. tion of the mechanical behavior of ber-polymer composites By projecting the eigenstrains on a generic microplane of a [1]. These theories, however, generally neglect the quasibrittle kinematically constrained microplane model [5], it is possicharacter of these materials. In quasibrittle fracture, the crack ble to decompose the microplane strain vector into orthogonal tip is surrounded by a nonlinear zone (fracture process zone) components (PI , microplane eigenstrains) that can be used to that is not negligible compared to the cross section dimension drive the constitutive behavior at the microplane level. From the of the structures. The fracture process zone (FPZ) at crack tip microplane eigenstrains, the microplane eigenstresses, PI , occupies almost the entire nonlinear zone and undergoes softcan be calculated according to suitable constitutive relations ening damage instead of plastic deformation typical of ductile for the normal and shear components of each eigenmode. The behavior. The stress along the FPZ is nonuniform and the stress macroscopic stress tensor may then be computed from the prindecreases with crack opening gradually, due to discontinuous ciple of virtual work, which reads: cracking in the FPZ, crack bridging by bers, and frictional pullout of inhomogeneities. 3 = EI P T PI d (2) The present paper summarizes the outcome of a recent research 2 I effort [2, 3] in which a complete theory for the mechanical behavior of ber-polymer laminates has been formulated where is the surface of a unit hemisphere, is the contraction in the framework of the microplane model. A constitutive law of the stress tensor into a six-dimensional vector, and P is the is rst developed for laminates with unidirectional reinforce- macro-micro projection operator. ment. Subsequently, general laminates with multidirectional reinforcement are modeled as an overlay of lamina with unidirec- In [2] and [3], the approach highlighted above has been fully developed with reference to unidirectional (transversely tional reinforcements of different orientations. isotropic) composite laminates. In this case, four orthogonal modes exist and each mode can be approximately associated Microplane Model Formulation with Spectral De- with a specic failure mode. This observation greatly simplies the formulation of the constitutive behavior at the microplane composition level. By exploiting the spectral decomposition theorem, the material stiffness matrix can be decomposed [4] as follows: E=
I

I EI

(1)

Calibration and Validation

An extensive calibration and rigorous validation of the presented model is still under way. Nevertheless, preliminary results [2, 3] are promising and the developed theory seems to be able to capture the most relevant aspects of the behavior of composite laminates. Fig. 1 shows the comparison between the microplane simulation, the well known Tsai-Wu criterion [7],

where I are the eigenvalues of the stiffness matrix and EI dene a set of matrices constructed through the diadic products of the eigenvectors of the materials stiffness matrix. The matrices EI also decompose the stress and strain vectors into energetically orthogonal modes, which are called eigenstresses and

Figure 1: Comparison between numerical simulations (solid line), Tsai-Wu criterion (dashed line), and experimental results (points) from [6] for the biaxial failure envelope ofa unidirectional laminate. Figure 2: Comparison between numerical simulations (solid and the experimental results (published in [6]) for the biaxial line), Tsai-Wu criterion (dashed line), and experimental results failure envelope of a unidirectional laminate. (points) from [6] for multiaxial failure envelope fora multidiThe developed and calibrated microplane model for unidirec- rectional laminate. tional laminates can be then used for the simulation of multidirectional laminates. A widely used laminate lay-up is (90/+45/45/0)S , which is quasiisotropic. The behavior of this multidirectional laminate is here simulated assuming each ply to be governed by the microplane model for unidirectional laminates. Fig. 2 shows the comparison between the experiments, the microplane model prediction and the prediction of the Tsai-Wu criterion. The microplane model theory agrees very well with the experimental data in the tension-tension quadrant of the envelope. For the tension-compression quadrant, the prediction is less accurate but still satisfactory. However, marked disagreement is found in the compression-compression quadrant, in which both the microplane model and the Tsai-Wu criterion severely overestimate the laminate strength. kinematically constrained formulation is known to be very stable in nite element analysis.

References
[1] I. M. Daniel, and O. Ishai (1994): Engineering Mechanics of Composite Materials. New York: Oxford University Press. [2] G. Cusatis, A. Beghini, and Z. P. Ba ant (2007): Specz tral Stiffness Microplane Model for QuasiBrittle Composite Laminates: I. Theory Journal of Applied Mechanics, ASME, in press. [3] A. Beghini, G. Cusatis, and Z. P. Ba ant (2007): Spectral z Stiffness Microplane Model for QuasiBrittle Composite Laminates: II. Calibration and Validation. Journal of Applied Mechanics, ASME, in press. [4] P. S. Theocaris, and D. P. Sokolis (1999): Spectral decomposition of the linear elastic tensor for monoclinic symmetry. Acta Crystallographica, A55, 635647. [5] Z. P. Ba ant, and B. H. Oh (1985): Microplane model for z progressive fracture of concrete and rock. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Trans. ASCE 111, 559582. [6] P. D. Soden, M. J. Hinton, and A. S. Kaddour (2002): Biaxial test results for strength and deformation of a range of E-glass and carbon bre reinforced composite laminates: failure exercise benchmark data. Composites Science and Technology 62, 1489-1514. [7] S. W. Tsai, and E. M. Wu (1972): A general theory of strength for anisotropic materials. Journal of Composite Materials, 5, 5880.

Conclusion
1. The spectral decomposition theorem, applied to the material stiffness matrix, is a powerful tool to analyze generally anisotropic materials. 2. The present SSM (spectral stiffness microplane) model describes well the experimentally observed behavior of ber composites, not only for uniaxial stress-strain curves, but also for multiaxial failure envelopes. 3. The main advantage of the SSM model is that one and the same model can simulate the orthotropic stiffness, failure envelopes and the post-peak behavior, which include strain-softening damage and fracture mechanics aspects. This further implies that the SSM model must be able to automatically predict the energetic size effect. 4. The SSM model can be implemented as a material subroutine in nite element codes, either implicit or explicit. From experience with microplane models for concrete, the