Failure Analysis of Woven Composite Joint Under Bending Load

A detailed study of the failure progression developed in a woven carbon fibre reinforced composite joint under bending load is described. Full-field stress data is provided by a three dimensional finite element analysis of the joint. The failure is checked by maximum stress criterion and modified maximum stress failure criterion. And the damaged materials are replaced by a degraded equivalent material defined by the degradation rules. All the three aspects form a progressive damage analysis model of the woven composite joint to disclose the failure process from damage onset to rupture, and then are validated against static bending test data. The numerical analysis is shown to be successful in predicting the experimental outcomes: the relative error of final failure moment between the numerical prediction and experimental mean is less than 6%; the predicted failure location and progression are consistent with the physical phenomena observed from experiments, etc. More information like internal strength dissipation and failure mechanism are depicted by numerical models, which provide more understanding on failure behaviours of woven composite joint under bending load.