Development and verification of an orthotropic three-dimensional model with tabulated input suitable for use in composite impact problems

The need for accurate material models to simulate the deformation, damage, and failure of polymer matrix composites under impact conditions is becoming critical as these materials are gaining increased use in the aerospace and automotive communities. The aerospace community has identified several key capabilities which are currently lacking in the available material models in commercial transient dynamic finite element codes. To attempt to improve the predictive capability of composite impact simulations, a next generation material model is being developed for incorporation within the commercial transient dynamic finite element code LS-DYNA. The material model, which incorporates plasticity, damage, and failure, utilizes experimentally based tabulated input to define the evolution of plasticity and damage and the initiation of failure as opposed to specifying discrete input parameters such as modulus and strength. The plasticity portion of the orthotropic, three-dimensional, macroscopic composite constitutive model is based on an extension of the Tsai-Wu composite failure model into a generalized yield function with a non-Associative flow rule. For the damage model, a strain equivalent formulation is used in combination with a semi-coupled approach where the overall damage in a particular coordinate direction is assumed to be a function of the applied loads in all of the coordinate directions. For the failure model, a tabulated approach is utilized in which a stress or strain based invariant is defined as a function of the location of the current stress state in stress space to define the initiation of failure. The development and verification of the material model is discussed.