A Non-linear Strain-rate Micro-mechanical Composite Material Model for Impact Problems

A micro-mechanical composite material model is developed to simulate the behavior of uni-directional composites under impact loading conditions in LS-DYNA®. The non-linear strain-rate and pressure dependency in the composite material model is accounted by the resin, which uses previously developed state-variable viscoplastic equations. These equations have been originally developed for metals, however are modified to account for the significant contributions of hydrostatic stresses typically observed in polymers. The material model also uses a continuum damage mechanics (CDM) based failure model to incorporate the progressive post-failure behavior. A set of Weibull distribution functions are used to quantify this behavior and a methodology of assigning physical significance to the choice of damage/softening parameters used in these functions is presented. The impact response of composite laminate plates has been simulated and compared to the experiments. In addition, the effect of hydrostatic stresses on impact problems has been further studied in detail. It has been observed that the predicted results compare favorably to the experiments.