Modelling of a novel strong and ductile FRP composite

Abstract

Recently, a novel FRP composite consisting of FRP helical skins and 3D printed cores has been developed. Favorable composite behaviors in terms of high strength, large deformation and notable nonlinear tensile behavior could be achieved by loading helical skins to squeeze inner cores with carefully designed configurations, i.e. shell thickness, core material, brace thickness, brace angle, core number, core height and span. Nevertheless, existing tests resulted in few computational tools for the composite. In this study, a Finite element (FE) model has been calibrated to predict the stress-strain responses for the composite up to skin fracture. Based on the FE predictions for one-core composites, expressions were also proposed for the composites with multiple cores. Comparisons between simulations and corresponding experiments demonstrated reasonable well accordance by using the proposed FE model and expressions, validating their reliability. Those proposed computational tools were expected to aid in further development of more efficient and sophisticated FRP composites upon increasingly updated demands.