A Computational Framework Enabling Comparative Analysis of Progressive Damage Models for Composite Materials

The present work is motivated by the need for an efficient and quantifiable assessment of how various strain- or stress-based composite materials failure criteria and damage evolution models that capture the load-induced material degradation, along with their intrinsic parameters, can affect our understanding of material behavior and facilitate suitability decisions of such criteria. The difficulty of performing comparative analysis among many of these criteria and models has been a significant impediment to the composite materials design and material certification communities. In response to these needs, the present work describes the development, verification and validation of such a general computational framework. This framework enables not only increasing the user’s understanding of the effect of parameters associated with models under consideration on the model predicted results but also allowing the user to address more advanced problems such as material design, optimization and potentially certification. The framework implemented into “COMSOL Multiphysics” utilizes symbolic algebra to automatically generate the required expressions to be used in the respective computational modules. Two strain-based models for two distinct specimen geometries are used to show the framework capabilities: one model is described by three damage modes and a second one is given by four damage modes. The first geometry is that of a unnotched coupon whereas the second is that of an open hole specimen in tension. The theoretical predictions are compared with the experimental ones in terms of load-strain responses. The results indicate that by proper selection of specific input parameters, these models can accurately predict the structural response of composite laminate structural systems up to failure.