Development of a damage analysis method in laminated composites using finite fracture toughness of single lamina

In the present study, the strong physical meaning of the micromechanics approach and capability of the mesomechanics approach for analysis of structures with complex loadings are employed to develop a new micro-meso approach. For this purpose, a new micromechanics model is developed to predict the matrix cracking initiation and evolution in an orthotropic composite lamina. In the meso-scale damage analyses, the traditional damage evolution and constitutive laws are substituted with the progress of damage in micro-scale. The major advantage of the proposed approach is using well-known finite fracture toughness of a lamina only to predict the damage behavior of composite laminates. It is shown that the predicted stress-strain behaviors using the developed procedure are in good agreement with the available experimental results for various laminates with a different lay-up configuration.