A 3D progressive failure analysis of mechanically fastened joints made of woven Glass-Epoxy composites

The present work aims to obtain failure loads for open- hole glass- epoxy woven composite joints under tensile loading. For this purpose, a user defined material model (UMAT) in the finite element analysis package ABAQUS, was developed to predict the failure load of the open-hole composite laminates using progressive failure analysis. In order to achieve the most accurate predictions, the influence of failure criteria and property degradation rules have been investigated. Experimental results concerning ultimate strength of the joints are obtained and compared with predictions. A good agreement between experimental results and numerical predictions is observed.

Keywords:

Woven composites , Progressive damage analysis , Failure criteria , User defined material model