Viscoelastic failure analysis of composite plates and shells

The present paper describes a numerical method for modeling the failure beh avior of composite laminates in the presence of large displacements and cre ep. Geometrical nonlinear finite elements are used for the discretization. The modeling of material behavior includes thermal, hygroscopic and viscoel astic effects, using an efficient state variable representation. Incrementa l damage is determined and used to calculate a modified stiffness matrix. T hus, the procedure can be used to analyze, for example, buckling, creep buc kling and creep buckling including damage. A detailed formulation; computat ional procedures and examples to check the accuracy of the code are present ed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.