A new integrated micro–macro approach to damage and fracture of composites

The element-failure method (EFM) is a novel finite element-based method for the modeling of damage, fracture and delamination in fibre-reinforced composite laminates. The nature of damage in composite laminates is generally diffused and complex, characterized by multiple matrix cracks, fibre pullout, fibre breakage and delaminations. It is usually not possible to model or identify crack tips in the conventional fashion of fracture mechanics. The central idea of the EFM, on the other hand, is to model the damaged portions with partially failed elements, whose nodal forces have been modified to take into account the local damage modes. This has the additional benefit of unconditional computational stability compared to other methods such as material property degradation (MPD) models. Here, we present the application of EFM with a recently-proposed failure criterion called the strain invariant failure theory (SIFT) in the prediction of complex damage progression in open-hole tension (OHT) composite laminates, and show that the damage patterns and predicted final failure loads are in very good agreement with experiments.