Predicting progressive delamination of composite material specimens via interface elements

This article describes the application of interface elements to the predict ion of progressive delamination in composite materials. The work has been i mplemented in two separate commercial finite-element computer packages, ABA QUS [1] and LUSAS [2]. In the former case, this has been achieved via a "us er subroutine," while in the latter case the elements are embedded directly within the system, either in the standard "release version" of the code or in a research version, to which the authors have access and in which they have implemented various algorithms directly. Comparisons are made with a r ange of experimental results for composite material specimens. In addition to the finite-element solutions, closed-form results are also presented tha t are based on a corrected beam theory.