A constitutive model for elastic damage in fiber-reinforced PMC laminae

A practical methodology is presented for modeling the damaging behavior of fiber-reinforced, polymer-matrix composite laminae. It accounts for the bas ic mechanisms of degradation of properties under mechanical loading and inc orporates this knowledge into a simple constitutive model in the framework of Continuum Damage Mechanics. A new expression for the damage surface is p roposed, which reduces to the expression of the Tsai-Wu failure criterion i n stress space. Model identification allows us to characterize the material through a small number of material parameters, all of which are related to material properties available in the literature. Available experimental re sults are used to illustrate the proposed methodology.