Damage mechanisms and inelastic mechanical phenomena are modeled to the mac
roscopic scale for multiaxial loading. The studied material is a 4D carbon-
carbon composite comprising therefore four reinforcement directions. A very
simple mathematical material model has been first derived for multiaxial l
oading as a consequence of some remarkable experimentally observed properti
es and the material geometry. The anisotropic continuum damage theory intro
duced by Ladeveze is used. To identify the material constants and functions
characterizing the studied 4D C/C material is a rather difficult task: fib
er debonding near the edges is very important for tensile tests. To go furt
her in the test analysis, large finite element computations have been done
introducing a meso-modelling of the composite specimen, the meso-constituen
ts being the fiber yarns, the matrix blocks and the interfaces. Finally, th
e identified material model has been checked on various experiments. (C) 20
00 Elsevier Science Ltd and Techna S.r.l. All rights reserved.