Orthotropic damage model for composite structures using the 3D Tsai-Wu failure criterion

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach concerning the development of an orthotropic damage model based on the original 3D Tsai-Wu failure criterion. In its original formulation, the Tsai-Wu criterion is only capable of identifying the existence of damage at a certain point in the material. However, it is not capable of identifying if the damage is located in the fiber, matrix or interlaminar zone. This work plans to fill this gap in knowledge by providing a simple method, based on equivalent stresses and strains, that identifies the failure modes when the Tsai-Wu failure criterion is near the on-set of damage. Using this novel method, it is possible to implement classical damage evolution laws based on the formulation of Matzenmiller. The proposed damage model is implemented in the commercial finite element software ABAQUS using user-subroutine UMAT, and the numerical results are compared with experimental data obtained earlier by other authors for different applications of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) structures. The numerical stabilization is achieved by using a new implicit to explicit material time step algorithm.

Keywords:

• Tsai-Wu criterion
• 3D orthotropic damage model
• energy regularization
• stabilization algorithm
• composite structures

Acknowledgements

The author is also grateful for the Foundation for Science and Technology’s support through funding UIDB/04625/2020 from the research unit CERIS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data and UMAT files will be publicly displayed and ready to be downloaded by the scientific community on GitHub at github.com/marioruiarruda/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) under the Transitional Standard—DL57/2016/N3/UI/CERIS/CT/165/2018.