Material response and failure of highly deformable carbon fiber composite shells


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Date

2020-10-20

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

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Abstract

Very thin carbon fiber composite shells can withstand large bending curvatures without failure. The resulting high tensile and compressive strains require accurate modeling of the fiber-dominated non-linear effects to predict the mechanical response. To date, no universal modeling technique can precisely capture the behavior of such structures. In this work, successful representation of composite’s response was achieved by utilizing single fiber tension and compression experimental data, implemented to extend a basal-plane-realignment based non-linear carbon fiber material model. Numerical techniques were adopted to model the bending behavior of unidirectional carbon fiber composites that was recorded in a comprehensive experimental campaign. Observations show that high material non-linearity leads to a non-negligible neutral-axis shift and drastic reduction of bending modulus due to compressive softening. Tensile fiber failure is the driving mechanism in thin shells flexure allowing for elastic compressive strains of up to 3% without micro-buckling. As a result, a remarkable flexibility in thin shells is realized. With increasing thickness, the elastic flexibility is reduced as the failure-driving mode switches to compressive micro-buckling.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

199

Pages / Article No.

108378

Publisher

Elsevier

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

Carbon fiber A.; Non-linear behavior B.; Modeling C.; Deformation C.; Thin shell composites

Organisational unit

03507 - Ermanni, Paolo (emeritus) / Ermanni, Paolo (emeritus) check_circle

Notes

Funding

150729 - Optical measurement of three-dimensional surface displacement fields of morphing structures (SNF)

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