The effect of anisotropic damage evolution on the behavior of ductile and brittle matrix composites

Anisotropic damage evolution laws for ductile and brittle materials have been coupled to a micromechanical model for the prediction of the behavior of composite materials. As a result, it is possible to investigate the effect of anisotropic progressive damage on the macroscopic (global) response and the local spatial field distributions of ductile and brittle matrix composites. Two types of thermoinelastic micromechanics analyses have been employed. In the first one, a one-way thermomechanical coupling in the constituents is considered according to which the thermal field affects the mechanical deformations. In the second one, a full thermomechanical coupling exists such that there is a mutual interaction between the mechanical and thermal fields via the energy equations of the constituents. Results are presented that illustrate the effect of anisotropic progressive damage in the ductile and brittle matrix phases on the composite's behavior by comparisons with the corresponding isotropic damage law and/or by tracking the components of the damage tensor. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.