Progressive damage modeling of open cut out CFRP laminate

under transverse bending using finite element analysis

Yagnik Kalariya (ME13M1009), Dr. M Ramji
Engineering Optics Lab, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad

Introduction and objective

Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates are widely used in aerospace, automotive and
civil structures due to their high specific strength, high stiffness, corrosion resistant and longer fatigue
life. These structures experience tensile or/and compressive load in actual service conditions and their
failure behavior changes accordingly. Since the structures like wing of an aircraft and hull of a marine
ship have multiple cut out for assembly purpose or electrical wiring purposes, their behavior and
failure mechanism is very different from the one without cut outs. CFRP laminates possess superior
tensile properties, but their compressive strengths are often less satisfactory. In addition, pure
compression of structures in real loading scenarios is less frequent than bending-induced compression.
Also, the damage evolution in CFRP laminate with interacting failure modes like matrix cracking,
fiber breakage, debonding and delamination is a very complex phenomenon. Most often the damaged
structures get repaired for extending their service life. Repair of a cracked structure by an adhesively
bonded composite patch has gained lot of importance.
Experimental stress analysis of open cut out CFRP panel under four point bending is carried out
using digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The zones of higher strain level are identified and
they are carefully studied. Further, through thickness normal and shear strain field is obtained. Also
the damage initiation and propagation in notched laminate is carefully studied. Later, a finite element
based progressive damage modeling (PDM) is implemented to exactly capture the experimental
damage mechanism. Both failure initiation and ultimate failure load for the cut out laminate will be
predicted. The accuracy of PDM model will be assessed by comparing the numerical prediction with
experimental results.

Motivation
Composite materials are being increasingly used in many industrial applications thanks to their
excellent mechanical properties and low specific weight. Some of these composite structures, such as
robot arms, drive shafts, and helicopter blades, may be modelled, at least in a preliminary design, as
beams subjected to loads that undergo mainly bending moments. Also, as stated above, many aircraft
and marine structures are subjected to bending loading.
This bending load produces delamination opening due to induced interlaminar shear stress. The
interlaminar strength of CFRP laminates is very poor. Propagation of damage owing to buckling of
delaminated part is one of the critical causes of failure in composite laminates. The interlaminar
strength is further influenced by layup configurations. This delamination may arise under various
circumstances, such as in the case of transverse concentrated loads caused by low velocity impacts.
This damage mode is particularly important for the structural integrity of composite structures
because it is difficult to detect during inspection. Furthermore, delamination causes a drastic reduction
of the bending stiffness of a composite structure and, when compressive loads are present, promotes
local buckling. So it is very important to know the behaviour of CFRP laminates under bending loads.
Also, it is very interesting to investigate the repaired panel under the same load to get the restored
properties of the damaged laminate after the repair.

Previous work
The failure analysis of composite laminates subjected to out-of-plane load causing bending has
not received as much attention as in-plane loading. Kim carried out buckling analyses of the
laminated plates and shells under axial compression using the finite element method. The formulation
of a geometrically non-linear composite shell element is based on the updated Lagrangian method is
presented to study the buckling behaviour. Bosia et al. studied the through thickness deformation of
laminated composite plates subjected to out-of-plane line and concentrated loads experimentally and
numerically using different span to depth ratios. They used both laminated-shell and solid elements
for finite-element simulations. Echaabi et al. analysed damage progression and failure modes of
graphite-epoxy laminates in three points bending tests. They determined the effect of geometrical
parameters on the successive failures and its failure modes.
From previous experimental and analytical work on unidirectional carbonepoxy, Wisnom
showed that changing the support span over thickness (s/t) ratio has dramatic effects on the measured
short beam and four-point bend shear strengths. The actual stress-state in a given beam specimen was
three dimensional, with stresses varying through the thickness and along the length and therefore
could not be adequately interpreted by means of classical beam theory. Early in theoretical work,
Kedward also predicted a variation of shear stresses across the width, with peaks at the edge of the
coupon. He also compared the theoretical model with experimental one by conducting short beam
tests. Post showed an interesting discontinuous distribution of the shear strain through the thickness of
the specimen using Moire fringe interferometry, with peaks at the ply interfaces where compliant
resin-rich regions are formed and delamination tends to originate. Reddy and Reddy used generalized
layer wise plate theory and a progressive failure model to determine first ply and ultimate failure
loads of a three point bend specimen. Stiffness reduction was carried out at the reduced integration
Gauss points of the finite element mesh depending on the mode of failure. Geometric non-linearity
was taken into account in the Von Karman sense. Tolson and Zabaras studied the first and last ply
failure loads of a laminated composite plate subjected to both inplane and sinusoidal transverse loads.
However, no comparison was made to test results for the transverse load case. Kam and Sher studied
progressive failure of centrally loaded laminated composite plates. The Ritz method, with geometric
nonlinearity, in the Von Karman sense, was used to construct the load displacement behaviour.
Mullea et al. used FBGs and DIC technique to analyze the mechanical behavior of a composite
structure submitted to bending tests. This was carried out by considering a beam type specimen which
presents design singularities such as important thicknesses, ply drop off zones and a reinforced zone.
This study concerned the central reinforced zone of the specimen. In order to estimate the strain
distribution during a series of 3 and 4-point bending tests. Gerald et al. presented a finite element
multiscale analysis that is able to predict material behavior of textile composites via virtual tests,
solely from the (nonlinear) material behavior of epoxy resin and glass fibers, as well as the textile
fiber architecture. They made predictions for a single layer within a textile preform or for multiple
textile layers at once. Turon et al. proposed a thermodynamically consistent damage model for the
simulation of progressive delamination in composite materials under variable-mode ratio. They
developed a novel constitutive equation to model the initiation and propagation of delamination.

Experimental work
Specimen and experimental setup
The experimental study involves testing of CFRP panels under pure bending to provide
fundamental insights into its damage mechanism and provides validation for numerical
prediction under the same. The whole field surface strain and displacement of CFRP panels having
single hole and two holes of different configurations will be obtained using digital image correlation

(DIC) technique. It will be helpful in real time monitoring of the damage progression of CFRP panels
with and without cutout under pure bending.
The specimen geometry and the test method used in this study to determine the flexural
properties in CFRP composite laminates are from the recommendations from ASTM D 7264. The
standard span to thickness ratio is 32:1. The standard width and thickness are 13mm and 4mm
respectively. The load span should be half of support span as shown in fig. 1.Composite laminates
will be fabricated by the hand layup technique with unidirectional (UD) carbon fiber mat. The matrix
is made from epoxy resin LY-556 mixed with hardener HY-951 (both Huntsman grade) in the ratio of
10:1 by weight. The average thickness of each layer of laminate after casting is found to be 0.35 mm.
Specimens are cut from fabricated laminates using abrasive cutter mounted on hand-held saw and
then machined to the required dimensions with special diamond-coated end mill supplied by SECO
Tools. A four-point bending fixture is used to investigate the deformation behaviour of CFRP
laminates to produce pure bending condition. All tests will be conducted on MTS servo hydraulic
cyclic test machine under displacement control loading. System of cameras for DIC image acquisition
will be used for monitoring the through thickness strain field of side face. Tests will be taken upto
final failure.

Fig. 1 Four-point loading configuration for pure bending condition

Damage assessment and whole field strain measurement using DIC

Digital image correlation (DIC) is an optical-numerical full-field surface displacement
measurement method. It is based on a comparison between two images of the specimen coated by a
random speckle pattern in the undeformed and in the deformed state [Sutton et al. 2009]. Its special
merits encompass non-contact measurement, simple optical setup, no special preparation of specimens
and no special illumination. The basic principle of the DIC method is to search for the maximum
correlation between small zones (sub windows) of the specimen in the undeformed and deformed
states, as illustrated in fig. 2. From a given image-matching rule, the displacement field at different
positions in the analysis region can be computed. The simplest image-matching procedure is the
cross-correlation, which provides the in-plane displacement fields u(x,y) and v(x,y) by matching
different zones of the two images.

Fig.2 Schematic diagram of the deformation relation

Numerical study
A finite element-based 3D PDM will be developed for notched and repaired panel under pure
bending load. Both single- and double-sided patch repairs on notched CFRP panels will be
considered. The study will be conducted for panels having different layup configuration. Initiation and
propagation of damage as well as failure mechanism in notched and repaired panels will be
investigated. Both failure initiation and ultimate failure load before and after the repair will be
predicted. Failure of adhesive layer leading to patch debonding will also be studied. The accuracy of

developed model will be assessed by comparing the numerical prediction with experimental results
obtained using DIC technique.
Fig. 3 FEA analysis of CFRP panel under four point bending loading condtion
PDM mainly comprises three steps: stress analysis, damage prediction and damage modeling.
Initially, finite element model of an open cutout and repaired panels are developed. The FE model is
then analyzed under given loading and boundary conditions to obtain the elemental stresses in
principal material directions of the laminate. In second step, the obtained elemental stress values from
FE analysis along with material strength parameters (obtained from experiments) are substituted into a
set of failure criterions to predict the failure of element and its respective failure mode. In the third
step, once the damage is detected by a failure theory, a damage modeling technique is then
incorporated to take into account the effect of damage on load-bearing capacity of the laminate and
further post-damage analysis is performed. The degradation is achieved by material property
degradation method (MPDM) which assumes that the damaged element can be replaced by an
equivalent element with degraded material properties. So, once the failure is identified in any element,
the material properties of the failed elements either that of the composite or adhesive are degraded to
5% of their original value.