An anisotropic elastoplastic constitutive model for large strain analysis of fiber reinforced composite materials

In this work a generalized anisotropic elastoplastic constitutive model for the large strain analysis of fiber-reinforced composite materials in the f rame of the mixing theory and the finite element method is presented. The i sotropic equivalent formulation proposed assumes the existence of a fictiti ous isotropic space where a mapped fictitious problem is solved. Both real anisotropic and fictitious spaces are related by means of linear fourth-ord er transformation tensors that contain the complete information about the r eal anisotropic material. Details of the numerical implementation of the mo del into a non-linear or large strain finite element solution scheme are pr ovided. Application examples showing the performance of the model for analy sis of fiber reinforced composite materials are given. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sc ience S.A. All rights reserved.