A micromechanical approach for the analysis of damage in laminated composite structures

A quasi-brittle damage model for composite material is presented to analyze progressive failure in composite structures. A rate independent constitutive law is expressed in terms of three damage parameters by using several polynomial failure criteria and a suitable micromechanical model. In order to follow the damage evolution of laminated composite plates subject to monotonic loads, a numerical procedure, based on a finite element approximation, is developed. In particular, the material stiffness reduction is computed by the proposed damage model and the number of global degrees of freedom is reduced by using "clusters of laminae". Finally, both numerical and experimental data available in literature are compared with the results obtained by the proposed numerical procedure. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.