Digital image correlation and biaxial test on composite material for anisotropic damage law identification

The purpose of the work is to extend the use of non-conventional tests and full field measurements to the identification of an anisotropic damage law. A Digital Image Correlation technique based on a finite element discretization is used to extract planar displacement fields. The reconditioned Equilibrium Gap Method is then used to retrieve a damage law that accounts for shear softening, a specific form suited to the present application. The identification is shown to reduce to a linear system. The example of a biaxial shear test performed on a cruciform specimen is considered. The approach is first qualified by using displacement fields resulting from a non-linear computation with a known damage law. A good agreement is observed between the prescribed and identified laws for distinct parameter settings, even when significant noise is added to the displacement fields. The reconstructed displacement fields coincide perfectly with the measurements. The complete scheme is finally tested considering images taken during an experiment performed on a carbon/carbon composite. The identified damage pattern and the corresponding damage values are similar to post-processed maps using classically identified parameters. The reconstructed displacement field accounts for 95% of the fluctuations observed in the measurements. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.