A multiscale failure analysis of fiber-reinforced composite materials subjected to transverse loading

A numerical multi-scale failure analysis of locally periodic fiber-reinforced composites subjected to transverse loading is carried out in this work. To this end a two-scale finite element approach is proposed, in which coupling between the two scales is obtained by using a unit cell model with evolving microstructure due to mixed-mode crack initiation and propagation at the fiber/matrix interface. Computational techniques have been introduced to perform the localization and homogenization exchanges between the two scales during microstructural damage evolution. In order to investigate the accuracy of the method in the prediction of failure mechanisms related to the interfacial crack growth at microstructural level, comparisons with a direct analysis adopting a fine-scale modeling of the composite structure, are developed for a 2D fiber-reinforced composite beam with initially undamaged fibers. Numerical calculations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and show the accuracy of the proposed method in terms of both macroscopic load-deflection curves and local failure quantities.