Application of Solid-like Interface Element in Delamination Growth Analysis Under Cyclic Loading

In this paper, a damage mechanic approach using interface elements is employed for the analysis of delamination growth in composite laminates under cyclic loading. A thin layer solid like interface element for modeling of the cohesive zone between any two arbitrary laminate layers was used and the developed formulation were implemented to ANSYS code, as a User Programmable Features (UPF). Using this code, delamination growth analyses are performed for DCB specimens that usually used to obtain the fracture toughness of delamination phenomena in composite laminates. It is shown that the developed code can be used to predict the delamination growth rate of composite laminates under cyclic loading with acceptable accuracy.

Keywords:

Fatigue , Delamination , Cohesive zone , Damage mechanic , Composite