Determination of CFRP intralaminar fracture properties in the calibration of a non-local damage model for crash application: Unidirectional material

Fibre-reinforced composites have excellent mechanical and dissipation properties, making them particularly valuable for applications requiring the material to absorb high kinetic energies, such as in crush applications. Simulating a crushing event using physically-based implementations can be complex. To properly implement Non-local Damage Models, it is essential to understand the intralaminar properties of the material. The Compact Compression and Compact Tension tests are the most used experimental tests to obtain these properties. This study is dedicated to the calibration procedure of the intralaminar fracture energies and damage parameters for the Waas-Pineda damage model in the ESI-VPS commercial software, for a unidirectional laminate. The calibration process involves the simulation and comparison of Compact Compression and Compact Tension tests with experimental data. Validation is accomplished by comparing numerical crashworthiness results with experimental data. The comparison demonstrates the effectiveness of the Wass-Pineda model in capturing the behaviour of crashworthy composite components.