Concurrent Multi‐Scale Simulation of Progressive Damage in Laminated Composites Using Shell Finite Elements

Abstract

This paper presents a study on multi‐scale modelling of progressive damage model in laminated composites using shell finite elements, with considerations for the effects of manufacturing defects. The approach utilises second‐order homogenisation with 5‐parameter shell formulation to capture the effects of complex sub‐structural geometry and damage mechanisms in a smeared, equivalent single layer manner. During analysis, the shell constitutive tensors are continually updated and derived from high‐fidelity unit cell simulations. The key benefits are two‐fold. First, manufacturing defects can be directly introduced to targeted regions by assigning unit cells containing said defects. Second, the effects of progressive damage, including delamination, are accounted for in a smeared fashion without requiring complex mesh‐stacking nor discontinuous kinematic enhancements. A series of numerical benchmarks are presented to demonstrate the model's ability to accurately predict damage/defect induced stiffness degradation, failure loads and damage morphology in laminated composites under loading conditions, including bending, shear, buckling and static indentation. Overall, the findings in this paper presents a proof‐of‐concept for a multi‐scale framework that enables defect assessment and damage modelling in shell‐based simulations of composite structures, and lays the groundwork for future computational acceleration via surrogate modelling.