Evaluation of Notched Strength of Thin-Ply Composite Materials Using Adaptive Discrete-Smeared Crack (A-DiSC) Method

Abstract

This study develops a multi-fidelity fracture simulation scheme of composite materials which combines the Adaptive Discrete-Smeared Crack (A-DiSC) method and the theoretical model for saturated crack density. The A-DiSC employs the discrete crack model (DCM) firstly to model the transverse cracks in the laminates. If the crack density of each ply reaches the saturation value calculated by the theoretical model, the DCM is converted to the smeared crack model (SCM). At this point, some cracks that are longer than a certain critical length remain explicitly modelled by DCM since they can significantly affect subsequent path to final failure and fracture. By combining the two models, this method reduces the computational cost while preserving sufficient prediction accuracy. In order to verify the prediction accuracy of developed scheme, the simulation of the open-hole tensile test of thin-ply composite laminates were carried out, and predicted results were compared with the experiments.