Physics-based Toolkit for Progressive Damage Prediction in Composites

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are attractive for several light-weight defense and aerospace applications. However, their inherent anisotropy and complex failure mechanisms limit their use in high-performance structures or components. Failure in FRP composites is a multi-scale process due to accumulation of progressive damage events. The failure behavior is also dependent on the nature of loads (impact, fatigue) and the environment. There is a need to develop new analysis tools that can model the multi-scale damage interactions within composite parts.Under this SBIR, ACT proposes to develop a peridynamics (PD) based meshless framework for capture of progressive damage in Fiber-reinforced composites subject to static, dynamic and fatigue loading conditions. To accomplish this ACT will advance a recently developed computational framework (in the realm peridynamics) which can account for both microscale damage and damage evolution in the form of crack growth and failure in composite structures. By virtue of the non-local formulation of peridynamics approach the governing equations are cast in the form of integro-differential equations which can be solved for propagation of cracks and discontinuities, without any need for re-meshing the domain or any additional prescription of crack paths.