Progressive failure analysis of 2D woven composites at the meso-micro scale

This paper presents a multi-scale progressive damage modeling strategy to investigate the damage and failure behaviors of 2D woven composites. The micro-scale and meso-scale RVEs are identified to sequentially consider the fiber/matrix scale and the tow architecture scale. The micromechanics failure criterion is then introduced to facilitate analysis of the damage initiation and evolution at the constituent level. An anisotropic damage model is also constructed based on the Murakami-Ohno damage tensor, and the damage evolution is governed by the material fracture energy during failure. The proposed multi-scale strategy is carried out by a user-material subroutine (UMAT) in ABAQUS, which predicts the detailed local responses and complex failure mechanisms of the woven composites. Moreover, experimental tensile and compressive tests are conducted to further validate the proposed model. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.