Compressive failure of woven fabric reinforced thermoplastic composites with an open-hole: An experimental and numerical study

Abstract

This research presents a detailed experimental and numerical study on the compressive failure of woven fabric reinforced thermoplastic composites, with an open-hole and with a pinned open-hole. The experimental evaluations are performed on the composite specimens using the Combined Loading Compression (CLC) evaluation method. Experimental results, including load response and damage morphology, are obtained and analysed. A meso-scale damage model is developed, based on Continuum-Damage-Mechanics (CDM), for predicting damage in woven fabric reinforced composites. The developed model, which can capture fibre fracture and matrix cracking, as well as the nonlinear response within the woven composite materials, is employed to conduct virtual Combined Loading Compression (CLC) tests. Numerical simulation results are compared with the extracted experimental results for model validation. Good correlation is achieved between experimental and computational results for both the open-hole and the pinned open-hole, with a twostage failure process being observed for the pinned open-hole.

Modelling damage in fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composite laminates subjected to three-point bend loading

“…is the characteristic length, which can be determined based on the volume of the elements. For more details of the characteristic length calculation, please refer to [6,[14][15][16].…”

The Impact Performance of Woven-Fabric Thermoplastic and Thermoset Composites Subjected to High-Velocity Soft- and Hard-Impact Loading

“…To calculate and compare the values of the contact pressures caused by the soft-gelatine projectiles and hard aluminium-alloy projectiles, the impact behaviour of the CF/PEEK composite target was modelled. The relevant material properties of the CF/PEEK composites required for the modelling studies may be found from the literature [11,12,15,[48][49][50][51][52][53][54] and are given in Table 4.…”

“…It can be seen that the aluminum-alloy impacted CF/PEEK composite exhibited a significantly higher reaction force than the gelatineimpacted CF/PEEK composite. The maximum reaction forces associated with the soft-gelatine Table 4 The input parameters for the composite damage model [11,12,15 Fig. 15 The FE model for simulating (a) the soft-gelatine particle (PC3D) impact and (b) the hard aluminiumalloy projectile impact on the composites and the hard aluminium-alloy impacts on the CF/PEEK composites were calculated to be 4.4 kN and 7.4 kN, respectively, see Fig.…”

“…With this in mind, the impact performances of composites, such as the conventional nontoughened and toughened thermosetting epoxy-matrix composites [7][8][9][10][11], thermoplasticmatrix composites [12][13][14], and three-dimensional woven-fabric fibre composites [15][16][17], have been studied. In industrial applications, the carbon-fibre reinforced-epoxy (CF/epoxy) composites have been extensively employed in civil aircraft, due to their relatively high performance and the relative ease of manufacturing large and complex structures from this type of composite material [18,19].…”

Development and Evaluation of Crack Band Model Implemented Progressive Failure Analysis Method for Notched Composite Laminate

“…The J-integral value was calculated using the strain values and the fracture energy value was finally obtained according to some assumptions. Many studies have been performed [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] on the failure behavior of an open-hole composite laminate. However, studies regarding the validity assessment of the suggested PFA by comparing it to the values obtained from experimental studies are scarce.…”