Failure of Composites with Short Fibers

Abstract

Strength-based failure criteria are commonly used with the finite element method (FEM) to predict failure events in composite structures. The laminate analogy is very useful for the calculation of the strength of composite materials with short fibers. The prediction of the laminate strength is carried out by evaluating the stress state within each layer of the laminate based on the classical lamination theory. In this paper FEM is used as a tool to predict the laminate strength. Failure criteria are used to calculate a failure index (FI) from the computed stresses and user-supplied material strengths. The micromechanical analysis has been carried out using computer package MATLAB and numerical simulation has been executed by using a commercially available ANSYS code.