A continuum damage model for composite laminates: Part III-Fatigue

The mesoscale continuum damage model for laminated composites that has been developed for the past 10 years at AMADE research group is extended for fatigue life and residual strength predictions. The same intra-laminar damage mechanisms are considered by means of the LaRC04 failure criteria, but a new set of functions are introduced to account for the degradation of the material under fatigue loads. The cycle jump approach is adopted within the finite element code to reduce the computational cost. In the follow-up paper part IV (Llobet et al., submitted for publication), the computational model is validated by simulating the progressive failure mechanisms of open-hole and double-edge notched specimens under static, tension-tension fatigue and residual strength load cases. All the experimental data is also described in detail in the accompanying part.

Automated summary

The mesoscale continuum damage model for laminated composites developed by the AMADE research group over the past 10 years has been extended for fatigue life and residual strength predictions. The model includes new functions to account for material degradation under fatigue loads and uses the cycle jump approach to reduce computational cost. Validation of the computational model was done by simulating progressive failure mechanisms of open-hole and double-edge notched specimens under various load cases in the follow-up publication.