Analysis of damage events in quasi-isotropic laminates using a generalized micromechanics approach

Recently, the authors of paper developed a new micromechanics method to study the damage growth in laminated composites with different lay-ups. In this paper, the developed micromechanics approach is employed for the parametric analyses of four quasi isotropic laminates with [90/45/0/-45] s, [45/-45/0/90] s, [45/90/0/-45] s and [0/45/45/90] s lay-ups under axial loadings. For this purpose energy release rate due to the transverse cracking and induced delamination are calculated and the order of damage happening in each laminate separately are discussed. The obtained results will be compared with the available experimental results. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICM11