Numerical simulation for interlaminar damage growth in CFRP cross-ply laminates under transverse loading

This paper proposes a numerical simulation for the interlaminar damage propagation in FRP laminates under transverse loading, using finite element method. First, we conduct drop-weight impact tests on CFRP cross-ply laminates. A ply crack was generated at the center of the lowermost ply, and then a peanut-shaped interlaminar delamination was propagated in 90/0 ply interface. Based on these experimental observations, we present a numerical simulation for the interlaminar damage propagation, using cohenive zone model to address the energy-based criterion for damage propagation. Moreover, this simulation addresses interlaminar delamination with high accuracy by locating a fine mesh region near the damage process zone, while its computational efficiency is kept by the use of an automatic mesh generation. The simulated results of interlaminar delamination agree well with the experimental results. Moreover, we showed that the computational cost for the simulation is dramatically reduced by the proposed method.