Alireza Rafie - Alireza Rafie,Tarbiat Modares University/Department of Mechanical Engineering
Amin Farokhabadi - Amin Farokhabadi, Tarbiat Modares University/ Department of Mechanical Engineering

Transverse cracking and delamination are two common modes of failure in cross ply composites that initiation and combination of these two modes lead to catastrophic failure in composites structures. In the present study to model the debonding and matrix cracking formation in 90 plies, the cohesive zone method and extended finite element method (XFEM) are used. Afterward, to examine induced delamination formation emanates from end of the matrix cracking, the cohesive surfaces are placed between consecutive layers.Simulation procedure is used to study the effect of ply thickness and presence of some defects such as voids on critical stress for formation of first transverse crack in 90 plies. It was found that by increasing the thickness of the 90° layer, the strength of the first transverse cracks as well as the stress of the initiation of the delamination is decreased. Also, presence of voids as a defect reducesthe strength of first crack in 90 plies

transverse crack, induced delamination, cohesive zone