Analysis of textile composite structures with finite Volume-p-Elements

Abstract

Anisotropic textile composites show nonlinear deformation and complex fai- lure behaviour. In particular three-dimensional reinforced textile composites are characterised by an orthotropic material behaviour. To achieve the full po- tential of textile composites the material and especially the failure behaviour has to be analysed particularly for regions dominated by three-dimensional stress distributions, e. g. load introduction areas. For these purposes finite volume-p-elements based on hierarchical shape functions are being developed. Furthermore the constitutive model is en- hanced to simulate material degradation and failure processes. Based on an anisotropic continuum damage model the material degradation is described with tensorial damage variables that characterise the crack density observed in experimental studies of Non-Crimp-Fabrics with E-Glass fibres. The deter- mination of the onset of degradation and the strength prediction is enabled by coupling the damage model with a failure criterion for three-dimensional reinforced plastics. Due to control the spatial adaptivity of polynomial order of the shape functi- ons different a posteriori error estimators are evaluated and compared espe- cially with respect to the applicability on structural models representing or- thotropic material behaviour. Experimental analyses were used to determine the parameters of the consti- tutive model. Besides the in-plane properties the through-thickness material properties are assumed to be primarily important for textile composites. The- refore a modified Arcan testing device was developed which provides test results for biaxial tension and shear load combinations taking the material thickness direction into account. Finally simulations and experimental analyses of a thick double holed plate - the loadintroduction of an elevator bucket - demonstrate the applicability of the material model and finite element implementation.