Tensile mechanical behavior and failure mechanisms of multihole fiber metal laminates—Experimental characterization and numerical prediction

This work mainly investigates the effects of the hole number and layer direction on the tensile mechanical behavior and failure mechanisms of multihole fiber metal laminates by experimental and numerical methods. With the aid of digital image correlation technique, tensile tests are implemented to obtain mechanical responses of different multihole fiber metal laminates. Subsequently, numerical simulation considering thermal residual stress is conducted to elucidate the failure modes and progressive damage evolution of multihole fiber metal laminates, which integrates the progressive damage model of composite laminates and a cohesive zone model between aluminum sheet/composite laminates. Finally, numerical predictions are found in a good agreement with experimental measurements, in terms of mechanical responses and fracture morphologies. Results demonstrate that the number of holes has negligible influence on the ultimate tensile strength, whereas affects the final failure strain of multihole fiber metal laminates evidently. With the increase of layer direction, the fracture morphology changes from evident brittle fracture to fiber pull-out and matrix damage, which indicates that the critical failure mechanism of multihole fiber metal laminates changes from tension dominated to tension–shear dominated. Additionally, the longer loading history from initial damage to final failure of composite laminates demonstrates the significance of considering progressive damage behavior in numerical simulation.