On the validation of a damage mesomodel for laminated composites by means of open-hole tensile tests on quasi-isotropic laminates

Laminated composites are designed to withstand significant loads thanks to the cooperation and interaction of plies with different orientations. Due to the growing use of these materials in industrial structures, their modeling constitutes an important scientific challenge. The damage mesomodel developed at LMT-Cachan, based on a micromechanical description, aims at predicting the evolution of damage in composite structures until failure. In this work, open-hole tensile tests performed on quasi-isotropic laminates are used to validate this model. Starting from Wisnom and Hallett's work, a comparison between experimental and numerical results is carried out focusing on two main parameters: the ply's thickness and the in-plane scaling effect. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.