Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133

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Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Progressive damage and nonlinear analysis of 3D four-directional braided

composites under unidirectional tension
Fang Guo-dong *, Liang Jun, Wang Bao-lai
Center for Composite Materials, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A representative volume cell (RVC) is chosen to analyze the progressive damage behavior of 3D four-
Available online 23 July 2008 directional braided composites with large braid angle subjected to uniaxial tension. An anisotropic dam-
age model is established by Murakami-Ohno damage theory. A new damage evolvement model is pro-
Keywords:
posed, which is controlled by material fracture energy of braided composites constituents and
3D braided composites
equivalence displacements. According to the different damage modes (yarn transverse tension, compres-
Damage model
Representative volume cell
sion and shear; yarn longitudinal tension and compression; matrix cracking), the different damage states
Non-linear analysis and progressive damage of the braided composite are obtained. The numerical results show that the main
failure modes of the braided composites are transverse tension, shear breakage of yarns and matrix crack-
ing, which are in good agreement with the relevant experimental results in some literatures.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction damage evolvement law is relevant to the strain energy density

Three-dimensional (3D) braided composites are being widely
used in the load-bearing structures due to their excellent mechan-
ical performances, combining high stiffness and strength at low
density, high energy absorption and outstanding fatigue character-
istic. Owing to the complicated braided structures, failure modes of
the braided composites are special complicated as well. Several
damage states are coupled at the same time even under uniaxial
tension. Generally it is difficult to observe the damage develop-
ment process of the interior braided composites and pick up each
mode in the mixed damage modes by macroscopic experiment as
well. However, the damage development process of the 3D braided
composites subjected to a given loading can be simulated by
numerical method. It is helpful to recognize the damage propaga-
tion of the braided composites further.
With the development of finite element method, many
researchers investigated the behaviors of 3D braided composites
by the numerical method. Considerable attention has been fo-
cused on stiffness of braided composites [1–4], and the damage
and failure of braided composites have been studied by some
scholars [5–14]. In the process of damage and strength simula-
tion, damage initiation is judged by criteria. Damage evolvement
law controls the development of damage variable. The stiffness of
material is reduced by introducing the damage variable into con-
stitutive equation. On the basis of a thermodynamic analysis, the
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 451 86412613.
E-mail address: fanggd@hit.edu.cn (F. Guo-dong).
release rate and potential of dissipation [15]. However, the poten-
tial of dissipation is difficult to be determined in the numerical
simulation. Therefore, many scholars proposed some stiffness
reduction schemes to realize the damage evolvement. Blackketter
et al. [5] firstly proposed a stiffness reduction scheme for unidi-
rectional yarn (an assembly of fibers) element to simulate two-
dimensional braided composites, which could be extended to
three-dimensional cases. Naik [6] used TexCad micromechanics
analysis tool to analyze the thermo-elastic, damage and strength
of braided composites. The undulated part of yarn in the braided
composites is discretized in many slices. In the calculation of the
strength, stiffness properties for failed yarn slices were reduced
by the predicted yarn slice failure mode. In Ref. [7], the progres-
sive failure of woven composites was simulated successfully by
considering the material shear non-linearity in the finite element
model. The stiffness degradation method was the Blackketter’s
reduction scheme. Zako et al. [8] built progressive damage model
of 3D woven composites based on Murakami-Ohno damage the-
ory. The damage factors of the damage model are 0 and 1 corre-
sponding to undamaged state and damaged state, respectively. In
addition, the damage propagation and strength of the 3D four-
directional braided composites were simulated in Refs. [9–14].
Their stiffness reduction methods for the 3D braided composites
were also implemented by Blackketer’s stiffness reduction meth-
od or ‘birth and death’ element method. Actually, the magnitude
of reduction stiffness directly influences the progressive damage
of material. Therefore, the reduction stiffness method should be
correlated with local stress and strain or other characteristic

0263-8223/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2008.07.016
 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133 127

parameters of braided composites in the process of establishing Yarn tensile and shear failure in T and Z direction:
damage model.
!2  2  2
The objective of this paper is to analyze the damage develop- rT þ rZ ðr2TZ  rT rZ Þ rLT rZL
ment of 3D four-directional braided composites by implementing /TðZÞt ¼ þ þ þ P1 ð3Þ
F tT ðF sTZ Þ2 F sLT F sZL
an anisotropic damage model. The damage evolvement of the mod-
el depended on the fracture energy of the yarn and matrix constit-
uents, characteristic length of element and equivalence Yarn compressive and shear failure in T and Z direction:
displacement is established. Meanwhile viscous regularization " #
2  2
method is used to improve the convergence of the numerical algo- 1 F cT rT þ rZ ðr2TZ  rT rZ Þ
/TðZÞc ¼  1 ðrT þ rZ Þ þ þ
rithm in Section 2. A representative volume cell (RVC) of the F cT 2F sTZ 2F sTZ ðF sTZ Þ2
braided composites is described in Section 3. After that, the bound-  2  2
ary conditions of the RVC and simulation process are described in rLT rZL
þ þ P1 ð4Þ
Section 4. The numerical results are compared with the experimen- F sLT F sZL
tal data and with numerical results described in the relevant liter- In the above equations F tL , F tT and F tZ denote tensile strengths in the
atures (Section 5). Finally, some valuable conclusions are obtained L, T and Z direction of yarn, respectively. F cL , F cT and F cZ express com-
in Section 6. pressive strengths in the L, T and Z direction of yarn, respectively.
F sLT , F sTZ and F sZL signify LT, TZ and ZL shear strengths, respectively.
2. Progressive damage model a is the contribution factor in the each mode.
The criterion of matrix damage initiation is expressed as
The fracture of the braided composites subjected to uniaxial follows:
tension exhibits brittle in companion with yarn breakage. Mean-
while several damage mechanisms of the braided composites are jrt1 j
/M;t ¼ <1 ð5Þ
combined simultaneously. Usually each damage mechanism con- F tm
sists of two ingredients: a damage initiation criteria and a damage jrc j
/M;c ¼ c3 < 1 ð6Þ
evolution law. Fm
where rt1 and F tm are the maximum tensile stress and strength of
2.1. Damage initiation criteria matrix, respectively. rc3 and F cm are the maximum compressive
stress and strength of matrix, respectively.
Failure mechanisms of braided composites can be divided into
three different types: yarn breaking, matrix cracking, and interface 2.2. Damage evolvement model
debonding. Each yarn has one or more failure modes as well, such
as longitudinal (L direction as shown in Fig. 1) breakage, transverse When the behavior of material model becomes soften, the dam-
cracking (T, Z direction as shown in Fig. 1) and shear (LT, ZL, TZ age of material exhibits localizing characteristic. The numerical
direction) failure modes. Therefore, the different damage initiation solution is extremely depended upon element size because of the
criterions are adopted for the different constituents: Hashin’s fail- energy dissipated decreasing with mesh refinement. Therefore,
ure criterion [16] for the yarn and maximum stress criterion for the the numerical result is not objective except damage evolvement
pure matrix. Because the interface levels are too thin to partition equation related to local stress or strain, element size and other
them into reasonable finite element meshes, the mechanism of material properties. In order to alleviate the mesh dependence, Ba-
interface debonding is ignored. The corresponding relations be- žant and Oh [17] proposed a crack band model which could deal
tween failure modes and their damage initiation criterions can with plane problems. Recently, Lapczyk and Hurtado [18], Maimí
be written as follows: et al. [19] all developed the crack band model to establish damage
Yarn tensile failure in L direction: evolvement equation in plane problems and got a good solution to
reduce mesh dependence problems. In their model, a characteristic
!2  2  2
rL rLT rZL element length is introduced into damage evolution expression.
/Lt ¼ þa þa s P1 ð1Þ For the spatial problem, it is assumed that fracture energy density
F tL F sLT F ZL
of one type fracture mode corresponds with constant value, while
the value of failure strain will be changed with element size. The
Yarn compressive failure in L direction: element characteristic length is the cube root of element volume.
 2 The area of failure plane of the element is square of the element
rL
/Lc ¼ P1 ð2Þ characteristic length. When the constituents of braided composites
F cL
fail, the element dissipated energy equals its elastic energy.
1 3 2
eI;f rI:f l ¼ GI l ð7Þ
2
where l is the characteristic length of element. rI,f, eI,f and GI are the
equivalent peak stress, failure equivalent strain and fracture energy
density of failure mode I, respectively.
The equivalent displacement at failure point is defined as
follows:

X feq ¼ eI;f l ð8Þ

Therefore, the equivalent displacements of initiation damage listed

in Table 1 have the similar forms with the Eq. (8). In addition, the
damage evolution equation of each failure mode is expressed by
Fig. 1. The schematic of a strand yarn. the following equivalent displacement:
128 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133

Table 1
The equivalence displacements and stresses corresponding to different failure modes

Failure modes Equivalence displacement Equivalence stress

r
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
L,r11 P 0  lðhr11 ihe11 i þ ar12 e12 þ ar13 e13 Þ=X Lt
eq
X Lt
eq ¼ l he11 i2 þ ae212 þ ae231

L,r11 < 0 X Lc
eq ¼ lhe11 i lhr11 ihe11 i=X Lc
eq
r
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

T,r22 P 0 X Tt
eq ¼l he22 i2 þ ae212 þ ae223 lðhr22 ihe22 i þ ar12 e12 þ ar23 e23 Þ=X Tt
eq

T,r22 < 0 X Tc
eq ¼ lhe22 i lhr22 ihe22 i=X Tc
eq
r
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

Z,r33 P 0 X Zt
eq ¼l he33 i2 þ ae223 þ ae231 lðhr33 ihe33 i þ ar23 e23 þ ar31 e31 Þ=X Zt
eq

Z,r33 < 0 X Zc
eq ¼ lhe33 i lhr33 ihe33 i=X Zc
eq

mtðcÞ mtðcÞ
Matrix X eq ¼ lje1ð3Þ j lje1ð3Þ jjr1ð3Þ j=X eq
a
hxi = (x + jxj)/2.

X Iieq ðX Ifeq  X Ieq Þ here C and C(D) are the stiffness tensors for the undamaged and
dI ¼ 1  ; ðI ¼ Lt; Tt; Zt; Lc; Tc; Zc; Mt; McÞ ð9Þ damaged configuration, respectively.
X Ieq ðX Ifeq  X Iieq Þ
The damaged stiffness matrix C(D) can be expressed in matrix
In the above equation X Iieq and X Ifeq are the initiation and full damage form by using the components of undamaged stiffness matrix
equivalent displacement of failure mode I, respectively. X Iieq and X Ifeq and the principal values of the damage tensor DI. It can be repre-
can be calculated by the following equations: sented more explicitly as follows:
.pffiffiffiffiffi 2 3
X Iieq ¼ X Ieq /I ð10Þ 2
bL Q 11 bL bT Q 12 bL bZ Q 13 0 0 0
. 6 2 7
6 bT Q 22 bT bZ Q 23 0 0 0 7
X Ifeq ¼ 2GI rIieq ð11Þ 6 7
6 2 7
6 bZ Q 33 0 0 0 7
CðDÞ ¼ 6 7
here, /I is the value of initiation damage criteria. GI and rIieq denote 6 7
6 sym bLT Q 44 0 0 7
the fracture energy density and initiation damage equivalence 6 7
4 bZL Q 55 0 5
stress of failure mode I, respectively. The initiation equivalence
stress rIieq can be calculated from the following equation: bTZ Q 66
.pffiffiffiffiffi ð16Þ
rIieq ¼ rIeq /I ð12Þ
where bL = 1  DL, bT = 1  DT, bZ = 1  DZ
where rIeq is equivalence stress as expressed in Table 1. It is obvious  2  2
that the damage evolvement equation is associated with the charac- 2ð1  DL Þð1  DT Þ 2ð1  DT Þð1  DZ Þ
bLT ¼ ; bTZ ¼ ;
teristic length of element, local strain, and fracture energy of the 2  DL  D T 2  DT  DZ
 2
braided composites constituents. 2ð1  DZ Þð1  DL Þ
bZL ¼
2  DZ  DL
2.3. Damage model
Qij, (i, j = L, T, Z) is the component of undamaged stiffness matrix.
Braided composites are composed of yarn and matrix. In gen- Because yarn has different initiation damage criterions for dif-
eral, yarn and matrix are treated macroscopically as transversal ferent failure modes described as in Section 2.1, the principle val-
isotropic and isotropic homogeneous bodies, respectively. ues of yarn damage tensor are defined as follows:
The damage of yarns and matrix pockets can be characterized
by Murakami-Ohno damage model. The damage model uses three XL ¼ maxðdLt ; dLc Þ
principal damage variables to express the damage states, and it is XT ¼ maxðdTt ; dTc Þ ð17Þ
expressed as XZ ¼ maxðdZt ; dZc Þ
X
D¼ Di ni  ni ; i ¼ ðL; T; ZÞ ð13Þ where XL is the principle value of damage tensor for the longitudi-
nal direction of yarn. XT and XZ are the principle values of damage
where Di and ni are the principal value and principle unit vector of tensors for the transverse direction of yarn.
damage tensor, respectively. Meanwhile the scalar formulation of matrix damage variables
In order to consider the symmetry of stress tensor, the effective can be defined as follows:
stress can be treated as follows:
XL ¼ XT ¼ XZ ¼ maxðdMt ; dMc Þ ð18Þ
1
r 
¼ ½ðI  DÞ1 r þ rðI  DÞ1  ¼ MðDÞr ð14Þ In the above equation, dI(I = Lt, Lc, Tt, Tc, Zt, Zc, Mt, Mc) is calculated
2
by the damage evolvement as defined in Eq. (9).
where r and r* are the undamaged stress and effective stress, Because the damage variables are introduced in the stiffness
respectively. In order to express the damage variable into stiffness matrix as expressed in Eq. (16), the numerical computation be-
matrix, the energy hypothesis advanced by Cordebois–Sidoroff is comes difficult to converge. In order to improve the convergence
implemented as follows: of the numerical algorithm, an artificial Duvaut-Lions viscous
model [20] is used. The time derivatives of the damage variables
CðDÞ ¼ M1 ðDÞ : C : M T;1 ðDÞ ð15Þ can be defined as
 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133 129

Fig. 2. Geometry of 3D four-directional braided composites.

1 microscopic image analysis. The relation of geometry parameters

D_ I ¼ ðXI  DI Þ; I ¼ ðL; T; ZÞ ð19Þ
gI of the RVC can be expressed as follows:

There, gI and DI are viscous parameter and regulated damage vari- h ¼ 8b= tan c ð20Þ
able of damage mode I, respectively.
La ¼ La0 sin c ¼ 2b cos c ð21Þ
Therefore, the stiffness reduction of the 3D braided composites
can be realized by substituting damage variables as shown in the Lb ¼ 2b  ð2a  La Þ cos c Lb 6 2a 6 Lm ð22Þ
Eq. (19) into Eqs. (14)–(16). Lm ¼ 4b cos c ð23Þ

where the height of cross-section 2a can be determined by K num-

3. Geometry model and material parameters of the braided
composites
3D four-directional braided composites are braided by four-
directional yarns which have the same angle between longitudinal
of yarn and braid direction. The 4-step 1  1 rectangular braiding
method is used. One braiding loop is one period. Because of the
complexity of braid structures, a RVC including four yarns is cho-
sen from the interior braid structures of the 3D braided composites
to analyze their mechanical properties. The path of yarn in the
interior of 3D four-directional braided composites keeps straight
based on simulation of braid process [21]. However, the cross-sec-
tions of yarn along longitudinal direction have different shapes due
to the crushing among neighboring different directional yarns. In
this paper, it assumes that the cross-section of yarn in the interior
of the RVC is an octagon. And assume that every two yarns in the
RVC is surface contact.
The geometry size of the RVC is given as shown in Fig. 2. The
braid angle c and the height h of the RVC can be measured by
Table 2
Braided parameters and RVC geometry parameters [13,24]
Specimen Interior braided Height of Fiber volume
angle c RVC h fraction, Vf
T4P4 46.4° 2.16 mm 51.76%
bers of yarn and cross-section area A = 6b2 cos c  (Lm  2a)2/
(2 cos c).
The braided parameters of 3D four-directional braided compos-
ites are given in Table 2. The braided yarns are T300 carbon fiber
bundles (6 K). The matrix is epoxy resin. Their elastic properties
are listed in Table 3. Due to the absence of experimental data,
the values for the fracture energies of constituents listed in Table
4 are assumed for the numerical computations.
4. Boundary condition and simulation process
4.1. Periodic boundary conditions
In order to keep forces continuity and displacements compati-
bility of the opposite faces of the RVC, the periodic boundary con-
ditions (BCs) should be imposed in the simulation. For the plane
problem in Fig. 3, ‘n’ and ‘m’ is a set of corresponding nodes of left
and right boundaries, respectively. The periodic BCs imposed be-
tween the nodes ‘m’ and ‘n’ shown as in Fig. 3 [22]. It is the similar
as the 3D problem.
The macroscopic deformation of the RVC can be expressed as
um
i ¼ H ij xj ði; j ¼ 1; 2; 3Þ ð24Þ
b
where Hij is the displacement gradient. The periodic displacement
and force constraints to be applied on the corresponding nodes on
0.283 mm
faces xj = 0 and xj = Lj are

Table 3
Material properties of constituents [13,24]

E1 (GPa) E2 (GPa) t12 G12 (GPa) G23 (GPa) Ft (MPa) Fc (MPa) S (MPa)
T300 carbon fiber 230 40 0.26 24 14.3 3528 2470
Epoxy resin 3.5 0.35 80 241 60
130 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133

Table 4 4.2. Simulation process

Fracture energy of fiber reinforced-epoxy composites

GLt (N/mm) GLc (N/mm) GTt (N/mm) GTc (N/mm) Gmt (N/mm) Gmc (N/mm) Four-node tetrahedron element is implemented to mesh geom-
8.0 8.0 1.5 1.5 1.0 1.0 etry of the RVC. Meanwhile the yarn/matrix and yarn/yarn inter-
faces are connected perfectly because the initiation deficiencies
in the RVC are not considered. The above anisotropic damage mod-
el are carried out in material constitutive equation by User subrou-
tine UMAT of ABAQUS nonlinear finite element codes [23]. In order
to obtain a fast convergence rate of the numerical algorithm for the
nonlinear problem, it is necessary to calculate precisely the mate-
rial tangent constitutive tensor, CT
!
X oC oDI odI
r_ ¼ C T e_ ; and C T ¼ C þ : eðI ¼ L; T; ZÞ ð27Þ
I
oDI odI oe
The process of simulation can be shown as the flow chart in Fig. 4.
That is

(1) The local stresses and strains of yarns and matrix in the RVC
are obtained by Newton–Raphson incremental method after
the periodic BCs are applied.
(2) The stresses, strains and damage variables of integral point
in every element are introduced to subroutine UMAT. The
Fig. 3. Periodic boundary conditions for the plane problem. integral point of element is identified whether it has dam-
aged or not based on its damage variable values.

ui ðLj Þ  ui ð0Þ ¼ Hij Lj ; F i ðLj Þ ¼ F i ð0Þ ð25Þ

where Lj(j = 1, 2, 3) are the lengths of sides of the RVC.
Because the opposite faces of the RVC have the same geometri-
cal features, the nodes on the faces are controlled in the same posi-
tion to form the corresponding nodes in the process of meshing the
RVC. The periodic BCs are imposed on the corresponding nodes by
FORTRAN pre-compiler code. In the uniaxial tensile state, HijLj is
the value of the RVC’s tensile displacement in the loading direction,
while HijLj is zero in the other direction.
The macroscopic strain is displacement gradient in the load
direction for the axial tension, while the macroscopically homoge-
neous stress is calculated from the following form:
P
Pi
r ¼ ð26Þ
S
where Pi and S are, respectively, reaction forces and area of the
RVC’s surface whose normal direction parallels the load direction.

Fig. 5. The macroscopic tensile stress–strain curve.

Fig. 4. The flow chart of progressive damage analysis of incremental FEM. Fig. 6. The influences of viscous parameter on stress–strain curve.
 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133 131

(3) Damage variables of the element integral point are updated
by Eqs. (9), (17)–(19) if it has damaged. Eqs. (1)–(6) is used
to judge whether the element integral point has damaged if
it has not damaged.
(4) Tangent constitutive tensor is updated. The values of stress
and strain are calculated.
(5) The analysis goes to next increment after the convergence
criterion is reached by several equilibrium iterations.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. The macroscopic stress–strain curve
The macroscopic stress and strain curves of 3D four-directional
braided composites are given as shown in Fig. 5. It can be obtained
that the predicted stress strain curve of this paper exhibits nonlin-
ear until damage develops in some extent, while it is not influ-

Fig. 7. Damage propagation of 3D four-directional braided composites with big braid angle under tensile load. (a) The percentages of damage and fracture element
corresponding to each failure modes. (b) The damage contours of RVC.
132 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133
enced apparently by the initiation local little damage. From the
comparison between the numerical results of this paper and the
experimental data excerpted from Ref. [24], the predicted results
are in good agreement with experiment curves. However, the ini-
tiation stiffness of the simulation results is lower than that of
experimental data. The phenomena can be attributed to only
choose the RVC for the interior structures but not consider the sur-
face structures of the braided composites in this paper. In Ref. [13],
the strength of numerical results which has considered the shear
nonlinear of yarn is higher than that of considering linear numer-
ical results. The tendencies of their stress–strain curves all appear
nonlinear apparently before the initiation damage of matrix occurs
as shown in Fig. 5. However, the numerical stress–strain curve of
this paper shows linear increase before the initiation damage of
matrix occurs. The main reason is that the damage evolvement
equation is implemented to obtain the magnitudes of damage vari-
ables when the damage initiation criterions of constituents are sat-
isfied in this paper. However, the Blackketter stiffness reduction
method was used in Ref. [13], which may magnify the values of
damage variables when damage has been appeared in some extent.
Therefore, it is important to adopt the reasonable stiffness reduc-
tion method in the process of progressive damage analysis. It can
influence the damage development behavior when damage is
activated.
5.2. Influence of viscous parameters
In the process of computation, viscous parameters are intro-
duced to improve the rate of convergence. The numerical strength
values are influenced by the viscous parameters as shown in Fig. 6.
The value of strength increases with the increase of the value of
viscous parameters. But the changes in variation of the prediction
strength values do not exceed 10%. In addition, it is observed from
Fig. 6 that the macroscopic stress–strain curves with different val-
ues of viscous parameters can be divided into three regions: the
linear region representing the initiation linear elastic of relation
between stress and stain, the nonlinear region of the rise curves
including the local damage in the yarn and matrix, and the curves
descending region in which the curves all decay similarly. It can be
found that the viscous parameters show delay effect in computa-
tion. The smaller the value of viscous parameter is, the more accu-
rate the numerical value of strength will be. In order to improve
the numerical rate of convergence and decrease the influence in
the value of strength, a constant value of the viscous parameter
equal to 0.001 s is used in all cases in the present paper.
5.3. Damage development
Because of the constituents of the braided composites with dif-
ferent failure modes elaborated in Section 2.1, the different dam-
age modes will be emerged with the increase of external uniaxial
tension. The initiation damage of yarns and matrix pockets of this
paper, respectively, are observed at strain 0.00375e and 0.005e as
shown in Fig. 7a. As well known, the damaged elements of the con-
stituents will increase with increase of the external tensile load.
The percentages of yarn damaged (DL or DT or DZ > 0.0) and failure
(DL or DT or DZ > 0.98) element numbers to the whole yarn element
number, corresponding to the yarn transverse and longitudinal
damage modes, are changed with the increase of strain as shown
in Fig. 7a. The similar percentages of the matrix damaged or failure
element number to the whole matrix element number are ob-
served in Fig. 7a. It can be found that the damage element percent-
age of yarn with transverse tensile and shear damage modes keeps
maximum value at any strain after the initiation damage occurred.
Consequently, the main yarn failure modes of the braided compos-
ites are the yarn transverse tensile and shear modes. With the fast
increase of matrix damage and failure element percentage, the
macroscopic stress–strain curve appears nonlinearity. It can be
concluded that the nonlinear characteristics of 3D four-directional
braided composites with big braid angle are determined by the
matrix failure properties, which well coincide with the experiment
conclusions in Ref. [25]. With descending of the macroscopic
stress–strain curve, the damage and failure element percentages
of matrix and yarns with all damage modes (transverse and longi-
tudinal failure) increase further. When the value of strain ap-
proaches 0.0065e, the macroscopic stress–strain curve appears
inflective point. The damage and failure element percentage
ascending velocity becomes fast. Therefore, the quick descending
reason of stress–strain curve is due to the yarn breakage.
In addition, the damage development and the states of the inner
one-directional yarns are shown in Fig. 7b. It is observed that the
transverse tensile and shear damage (TZ damage as shown in Fig.
7b point I) occurs initially in the stress concentration zones where
yarns contact each other. Then the transverse damage progresses
with the increase of the tensile strain, and the damage zones be-
come larger and join those of neighboring zones along the yarn
longitudinal direction as shown the TZ damage in Fig. 7b points II
and III. The longitudinal tensile damage of yarn (L damage) as
shown in Fig. 7b increases quickly at point III, but it is not the main
damage state of the yarn. The matrix damage mainly appears and
develops at the matrix pocket regions neighboring yarns intersect-
ing zones as shown in Fig. 7b.
Fig. 8 shows the stereo scan photographs of fracture for 3D four-
directional braided composites with big braid angle under uniaxial
tension reported in Ref. [26]. It shows that the yarn failure is bend
fracture on the low power stereo scan photograph (Fig. 8a). On the
high power stereo scan photograph (Fig. 8b), the interface between
fiber and matrix is linked perfectly. There are clear cutting strap in
the resin matrix and crack initiation and propagation along the
surface of fiber. The main failure modes of the braided composites
obtained from numerical results of this paper are the trans-
verse tensile and shear failure modes of yarns, which are in good
Fig. 8. The fracture SEM of large braided angle braided composites [26]. (a) Bundles
bending and breaking. (b) Good interface between fiber and matrix with shearing
ductile accessories.
 F. Guo-dong et al. / Composite Structures 89 (2009) 126–133
agreement the fracture modes as shown in Fig. 8. Therefore, it can
demonstrate the validity of the numerical results further. From all
above, the simulation procedure based on the anisotropic damage
model can be used to analyze the complicated damage mecha-
nisms of the 3D four-directional braided composites that cannot
be comprehended by experiments or other conventional
simulations.
6. Conclusions
The damage propagation of a representative volume cell (RVC)
is analyzed by using an anisotropic damage model in finite element
method to evaluate the non-linear behavior of the 3D four-direc-
tional braided composites with big braid angle. Meanwhile some
conclusions could be obtained through the discussion for the
numerical results as follows:
(i) The nonlinear characteristic of 3D four-directional braided
composites with big braid angle is determined by the failure
properties of matrix. The main failure modes of the braided
composites subjected to uniaxial tension are transverse ten-
sile and shear failure modes of yarns and matrix cracking.
(ii) The viscous parameters introduced in the damage model
can improve the numerical convergence rate and also influ-
ence the numerical strength in some extent. However, it
does little effect to damage development behavior of the
braided composites.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (10772060, 10572044) and the Program for New Cen-
tury Excellent Talents in University (NCET-05-0346).
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