Stress-strain characterization and damage modeling of glass-fiber-reinforced polymer composites with vinylester matrix

Beyond a certain loading threshold, glass-fiber-reinforced polymer composites with vinylester matrix can show considerably nonlinear deformation behavior due to damage of the matrix material. To model such nonlinear deformation properties, we follow the approach of a fully anisotropic damage model suggested by Govindjee et al. (Govindjee S, Kay GJ and Simo JC. Anisotropic modelling and numerical simulation of brittle damage in concrete. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 1995; 38(21): 3611–3633).

In addition, the inter-fiber fracture criterion introduced by Puck (Puck A. Festigkeitsanalyse von Faser-Matrix-Laminaten: Modelle für die Praxis. München, Germany: Hanser Fachbuchverlag, 1996) is used for the damage function that defines the damage initiation and the material strength. A particular procedure is chosen to identify the material properties to validate the model: three glass-fiber-reinforced polymer laminates with different layups are tested in tension under different loading orientations, assuming laminate theory to be reasonably well fulfilled. Finally, further experiments are compared with corresponding simulation results to demonstrate the performance of the model.