MODELING DYNAMIC FRACTURE AND DAMAGE IN A FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITE LAMINA WITH PERIDYNAMICS

Abstract

We propose a peridynamic formulation for a unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite lamina based on homogenization and mapping between elastic and fracture parameters of the micro-scale peridynamic bonds and the macro-scale parameters of the composite. The model is then used to analyze the splitting mode (mode II) fracture in dynamic loading of a 0 ◦ lamina. Appropriate scaling factors are used in the model in order to have the elastic strain energy, for a fixed nonlocal interaction distance (the peridynamic horizon), match the classical one. No special criteria for splitting failure are required to capture this fracture mode in the lamina. Convergence studies under uniform grid refinement for a fixed horizon size (m-convergence) and under decreasing the peridynamic horizon ( -convergence) are performed. The computational results show that the splitting fracture mode obtained with peridynamics compares well with experimental observations. Moreover, in the limit of the horizon going to zero, the maximum crack propagation speed computed with peridynamics approaches the value obtained from an analytical classical formulation for the steady-state dynamic interface debonding found in the literature.