Effect of Mismatch of Stacking Phase on Damage Development of Plain Woven Fabric Composite Materials
Yasutomo UETSUJI, Yoshiaki ISHIWARI, Masaru ZAKO, Tetsusei KURASHIKI and Ignaas VERPOEST
Abstract:Woven fabric composites have superior mechanical properties such as ductility and tear strength, compared with unidirectional fiber reinforced composites. As the application of their laminates to main parts of various structures increases, the damage behaviors of woven fabric composites become a subject of considerable interest for recent years. Although the mechanical behaviors of laminates are affected strongly by stacking configuration, their mechanism has not been completely revealed due to the geometric complexity of fabric architecture. In this paper, the effect of mismatch of stacking phase on damage development has been investigated numerically by a three-dimensional finite element analytical code based on damage mechanics. Our finite element analysis has an advanced point in anisotropic post-failure constitutive equation considering mesoscale failure modes. The mechanical behaviors of plain woven fabric composites under on-axial tensile load have been analyzed for 2-layered laminates with different stacking phase. As a result, it has been recognized that out-of-phase laminate shows stronger performance compared with iso-phase laminate. Additionally, it has been revealed that 2-layered laminate with 1/4 phase mismatch in perpendicular direction to tensile load shows slower damage occurrence and development of transverse cracks in wefts, and that ones with 1/4 phase mismatch in parallel direction show more rapid damage progress than iso-phase laminate. Key Words:Woven fabric composite materials, Stacking phase, Failure mode, Damage mechanics, Finite element analysis