Materially & Geometrically Nonlinear Woven Composite Micro-mechanical Model with Failure for Finite Element Simulations

A computational micro-mechanical material model of woven fabric composite material is developed to simulate failure. The material model is based on repeated unit cell approach. The fiber reorientation is accounted for in the effective stiffness calculation. Material non-linearity due to the shear stresses in the impregnated yarns and the matrix material is included in the model. Micro- mechanical failure criteria determine the stiffness degradation for the constituent materials. The developed material model with failure is programmed as user defined subroutine in the LS-DYNA finite element code with explicit time integration. The code is used to simulate the failure behavior of woven composite structures. The results of finite element simulations are compared with available test results. The model shows good agreement with the experimental results and good computational efficiency required for finite element simulations of woven composite structures.