Thermo-mechanical fatigue progressive analysis of delamination in composite laminates

Abstract

A thermo-mechanical progressive analysis model is proposed for predicting fatigue-driven delamination in composite laminated plates. The delamination is simulated based on extended layerwise method (XLWM). The traction-separation law is employed to the heat flux transfer and mechanical load transfer across the delamination front. A thermo-mechanical cohesive zone model (TM-CZM) is developed by Peerlings damage law to simulate the fatigue characteristic of delamination front. In the numerical examples, the effects of mesh lengths, acceleration multipliers, interface strengths, and cyclic temperature load magnitudes on the delamination expansion process are investigated, and the temperature-life curves of composite laminates are determined as well.

Keywords:

• Composite laminated plates
• extended layerwise method
• cohesive zone model
• delamination
• fatigue

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundations of China (12072364, 3122023PT13); Natural Science Foundations of Tianjin (21JCQNJC00880); and Special Aircraft Foundations of China Special Vehicle Research Institute (TK1413).