FE modeling of delamination growth in interlaminar fracture specimens

Interlaminar fracture specimens like Double Cantilever Beam (DCB), End Notched Flexural (ENF), Single Leg Bending (SLB) etc. are widely used for studying the interlaminar toughness of composite laminates. The aim of this paper is to analysis delamination specimens within the framework of a meso-level damage modeling of composite laminates. In this case interlaminar interface is assumed as a damageable homogeneous layer between adjacent layers of the specimen bulk material. The degradation of the interlaminar connection can be taken into account by means either of an appropriate damage initiation criterion and damage evolution law or using fracture mechanics approach. Onset and growth of the delamination pre-existing crack in the fracture specimens are simulated by using both modeling possibility within commercial finite element code ABAQUSTM. Comparisons between numerical predictions of used different finite element models as well as available experimental data have been performed.