Modeling plasticity and damage in fiber reinforced composites by a crystal plasticity based approach

In very thin ply laminates, delamination failure initiation occurs at much higher stress levels as compared to conventional ply laminates. This results in significant plastic deformation in the matrix accompanied by large fiber rotations. A closer look reveals that microstructure of fiber reinforced composites at large strains do not rotate with the plastic spin induced by the total deformation gradient and therefore inelasticity of such materials requires dedicated constitutive models. This paper focuses on inelastic response of such composites by using a recently proposed crystal plasticity based modeling framework and extents it by a non-local continuum damage mechanics formulation. As opposed to existing works related to composites, adapted crystal plasticity model is formulated and implemented in an implicit manner. To address the initiation and evolution of damage observed at large strains, localizing implicit gradient damage (LIGD) framework is used to degrade the slip resistance and hardening mechanisms on longitudinal and transverse slip systems by means of two separate damage variables. A user element (UEL) subroutine encapsulating all the components of the model is developed and integrated within the commercial finite element solver Abaqus. Capabilities of the model are assessed at material point, ply, and component levels by comparisons with analytical solutions and selected experimental results from the literature.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the inelastic response of very thin ply laminates using a crystal plasticity-based modeling framework and a non-local continuum damage mechanics formulation. The proposed model is implemented in an implicit manner and is assessed at different levels through comparisons with analytical solutions and experimental results.