Experimental and numerical investigation of the damage behaviour of single fibre composites

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Volker Ulbricht (†)
• Subject Area: Mechanics
• Term: from 2011 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 187807701

The project investigates the damage of fibre-reinforced plastics. Therefor the concept of homogenisation is deployed, spanning three scales - micro, meso and macro. The methology to determine the properties of the fibres and the fibre-matrix-interface on the microscale was developed during the first period of the project. To characterise those properties, the comparison of simulations and experimental results of single fibre fragmentation tests (SFFT) and pullout test was used. Furthermore the viscoelastic properties of the matrix material were identified.During the second stage the rate dependend behaviour of the damaged matrix shall be modelled and parameterised by comparison with experiments. Thereby the behaviour of all constituents of the composite is identified. Based on this knowledge the effective behaviour of damaged composites on the macroscale will be determined by means of a two-stage computational homogenisation. This homogenisation includes the simulation of representative stochastic distributions of fibres and their strength on the microscale as well as the reinforcement structure consisting of rovings on the mesoscale.All simulations will be compared to experiments to calibrate parameters of the deployed models or to validate their predictions. Besides the mentioned experiments model composites with few fibres will be used to validate the interaction of interface and matrix damage on the microscale. Results of the homogenisation will be validated by experiments on unidirectional and multiaxial reinforced specimen.The proposed investigation is fundamental. Exemplary the material combination of E-glass and epoxy resin as well as the fibre geometry of the reinforcement are deployed. Nevertheless the results are of direct significance in the application of fibre-reinforced plastics. In comparison to materials like steel or aluminium their potential is exploited poorly due to a lack of quantification of their damage behaviour.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants