Damage in woven composites
Woven composites are net-shaped composite structures that are fully interconnected by their yarns. Like a piece of cloth, the yarns are weaved together as warp and weft to create a composite structure.
Woven composites are advanced materials that offer a diverse range of capabilities, making them increasingly popular in various industries. These composites are formed by interlacing yarns or fibers at different angles, resulting in a layered structure that enhances their mechanical properties. One key advantage of woven composites is their exceptional strength-to-weight ratio, allowing for the creation of lightweight structures without compromising on durability. They exhibit excellent resistance to impact, fatigue, and corrosion, making them suitable for demanding applications in aerospace, automotive, marine, and sporting goods industries.
Moreover, woven composites possess inherent damage resistance due to their interlaced fiber architecture. The crisscrossing patterns of fibers distribute and absorb energy, minimizing the propagation of cracks and enhancing overall structural integrity. This property makes woven composites highly desirable for applications where damage tolerance is critical.
This training package focuses on the simulation of woven composite damage in Abaqus. The modified Hashin damage model, which is based on the article titled ” Static Tensile Properties Simulation of Plane Woven-reinforced Laminates with Hole Damage,” is used in this package. The package includes the following four lessons:
Lesson 1: What is woven composite?
In this lesson, we will begin by introducing woven composites and highlighting their advantages over traditional composites. These advantages include the elimination of delamination, reduced risk of cracks, and enhanced impact resistance, among others.
Furthermore, we will explore various applications of woven composites in different industries. Some notable examples include their use in medical fabrics, engine rotors, aircraft frameworks, and military equipment. These applications showcase the versatility and effectiveness of woven composites in meeting the demanding requirements of these sectors.
By the end of this lesson, you will have gained a comprehensive understanding of the benefits offered by woven composites and their wide-ranging applications in diverse industries.
Lesson 2: Woven composite modeling
In lesson two, we will learn about woven composite modeling in different scales and determine on which scale we will simulate woven composites. We can model the composites in two scales: macro and micro scales.
In macro modeling, instead of modeling composite components separately, you can define composite material properties obtained from experimental tests in Abaqus with common Abaqus composite modeling methods.
In micro modeling, however, we need to model the components of the composite separately and then assemble them to create a small volume of it that represents the whole composite. Representative Volume Element (RVE) is a common method for micro modeling.
This package does the modeling in the macro scale. But you can learn the micro modeling in this package: Abaqus composite modeling of Woven & Unidirectional + RVE method
Lesson 3: Damage in woven composites
The first part of this lesson talks about types of damage (failure modes) in woven composite. Woven composites have three main failure or damage modes: fiber failure, delamination, and matrix failure. Note that you might see these failure modes with other names in some research articles.
We have fiber failure when fibers in warp or weft directions are damaged. The delamination occurs when there is damage between warp and weft fibers; usually, it happens when there is loading in the normal (thickness) direction. And we have matrix failure when the matrix cracks.
In the second part, the modified Hashin damage model for woven composites is presented. This model determines damage directions (warp, weft, and normal directions), and failure modes in both tensile and compressive loadings.
- Fiber failure in tensile, direction 1 (warp direction),
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- Fiber failure in compression,
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- Fiber failure in tensile, direction 2 (weft direction),
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- Fiber failure in compression, direction 2 (weft direction),
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- Delamination in tensile, direction 3 (normal direction),
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- Delamination in compression, direction 3 (normal direction),
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Each of the above equations is explained completely along with their variables. Also, the differences between the conventional Hashin damage criteria used for traditional composites are explained.
Lesson 4: How to apply the damage criterion in Abaqus
In this concluding lesson, we will delve into the application of the modified Hashin criteria using the USDFLD subroutine to our model. To begin, we will provide a comprehensive explanation of the code’s flowchart, enabling a clear understanding of how the subroutine operates. Next, we will meticulously describe the code line by line, providing you with the necessary knowledge to write similar subroutines. This detailed breakdown will ensure a thorough comprehension of the process involved in implementing subroutines like the one at hand.
Finally, we will validate the subroutine’s functionality by comparing its results with experimental data. This crucial step will confirm the accuracy and reliability of the subroutine, ensuring that it aligns with real-world observations.
Workshop: Damage simulation of a woven composite plate
The initial focus of this discussion is to describe the problem at hand, which entails modeling a plate featuring a circular hole at its center. We will provide details regarding the material properties employed in the model, as well as the boundary conditions applied to ensure a comprehensive understanding. Subsequently, we will guide you through the modeling process in Abaqus, providing a step-by-step explanation to ensure clarity. This comprehensive walkthrough will enable you to grasp the intricacies of the modeling procedure and successfully implement it. Moving forward, we will thoroughly delve into the results obtained from the model. A comprehensive discussion will be conducted, encompassing various aspects such as failure modes, damage initiation, and progressive damage.
If you are working on Abaqus composite damage and need some resources about composite FEM simulation, click on the Abaqus composite analysis page to get more than 20 hours of video training packages on composite materials simulation. I hope you have got enough information about the woven composite damage simulation; if you need more information about this package, please get in touch with us via online chat on the left side of this page. It would be helpful to see Abaqus Documentation to understand how it would be hard to start an Abaqus simulation without any Abaqus tutorial.
After purchase, you can access the subroutine immediately.
The video files and workshops will be available 2 months later after purchase.
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While the workshops focus on developing a subroutine for modeling damage in woven composites, it may be useful to provide more information on other methods for simulating composite damage, such as cohesive zone modeling or continuum damage mechanics. This would give users a more comprehensive understanding of the different approaches available for modeling composite damage.