Development of a Constitutive Material Model with Progressive Failure and Damage for Woven Thermoplastic Composites

Abstract

This paper describes the behavior of the DuPontâ„¢ Vizilonâ„¢ thermoplastic composite sheet materials and matches this to composite models as implemented in Abaqus [1] and LS-DYNA [2]. The performance of the models with the corresponding material parameters are evaluated by simulating material specimen tests and structural beam component. The results show limitations of current composite material models in Abaqus [1] when applied to thermoplastics. To obtain a more accurate description of the actual material behavior, DuPont has developed a User material model by combining both plastic deformation of the thermoplastic matrix material with a more classical composite damage model for the description of the nonlinear permanent deformation of the woven continuous fiber reinforcement. The results obtained with this model are presented, demonstrating accurate prediction results and the potential of this model for thermoplastic composites.