A study of early-time response in dynamically loaded visco-elastic composites

Spalling is an important failure mode which triggers delamination, thus affects through-thickness integrity of a laminate and hinders the later integral plate action. The aim of the present study is to model the propagation of one-dimensional waves caused by a short-duration dynamic load through a visco-elastic medium. Two types of viscous effects are considered and described by means of partial differential equations. Four pulse load shapes are considered and four cases analysed. A higher order Lagrangian finite element is used to model the wave propagation and the weak-form Galerkin method is adopted to solve the differential equations. Numerical solutions are compared to analytical ones (where they exist) and excellent temporal and spatial correlation is achieved. It is found that damping leads to a decrease in peak stresses and strains by up to 11% for 5% of critical damping, even during the direct loading phase. It is shown that the inclusion of strain-rate did not have an effect on strains but led to an increase in stresses by almost 100%. The inclusion of damping and strain-rate effects increased stress values by up to 70% compared to the non-viscous cases, rendering strain-rate effects more pronounced than damping effects.