Prediction of Fatigue-Driven Delaminations in Composite Laminates Using Cohesive Zone Model

Abstract

This paper presents an improved strategy based on Cohesive Zone Model (CZM) for prediction of delamination growth in composite laminates under fatigue loading. The fatigue delamination models describe the crack growth rate as a function of the number of cycles using coefficient of the Paris law-like curve, no crack tip tracking algorithm being required. The proposed CZM fatigue models were implemented into ABAQUS/Explicit via a user-written subroutine VUMAT. The developed models were finally used to simulate fatigue-driven delaminations in composite laminates subjected to mode I, mode II and mixed-mode loading scenarios. Numerical predictions was compared with experimental data that are available from open literature, and a good agreement were obtained.