THEORETICAL-STUDY OF STRUCTURAL EFFECTS ON THE COMPRESSIVE FAILURE OFLAMINATE COMPOSITES

In this paper, the compressive failure of long fibre composites due to plastic microbuckling is modelled as a structural instability. On the grounds of the homogenized model proposed by Gardin et al. (1993), th e microbuckling problem is defined at the mesoscopic scale by using a double scale kinematics. We have developed a specific finite element w hich takes into account not only the effects of the initial fibre defe ct and of the physical matrix non-linearity, but also the effects of s tructural parameters (ply thickness, stacking sequence, load). This nu merical software permits rapid prediction of the failure of various la minate configurations by maximum load computations.