A Micropolar Cohesive Damage Model for Delamination of Composites

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel micropolar cohesive damage model for composite delamination, incorporating micro-rotational effects and length scale parameters to better capture micro-structural influences during failure.

Contribution

It develops a new cohesive damage model that includes micro-rotation degrees of freedom, enhancing the understanding of delamination mechanics in composites.

Findings

The model captures micro-rotational jumps at interfaces.

Numerical simulations align with experimental results.

Material length scales influence delamination behavior.

Abstract

A micropolar cohesive damage model for delamination of composites is proposed. The main idea is to embed micropolarity, which brings an additional layer of kinematics through the micro-rotation degrees of freedom within a continuum model to account for the micro-structural effects during delamination. The resulting cohesive model, describing the modified traction separation law, includes micro-rotational jumps in addition to displacement jumps across the interface. The incorporation of micro-rotation requires the model to be supplemented with physically relevant material length scale parameters, whose effects during delamination of modes I and II are brought forth using numerical simulations appropriately supported by experimental evidences.