Numerical and experimental investigation on mechanical responses of plain woven CFRP composite under various loading cases

This paper studies the complex mechanical behaviour of woven carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites fabricated by Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion technique. A strategy for modelling of woven composite using a continuum damage mechanic model is proposed in this research. Then different loading cases, including off-angle tension, punch and axial crushing of corrugated plate, were simulated and the numerical results correlate very well with experiments in terms of mechanical responses, which verifies the validity of the modelling strategy. However, it is found that simulation is greatly affected by some parameters including both material properties and model-specific parameters, such as potential fracture angle in the transverse direction, crush front softening parameter, contact penetration curve and thickness of crush trigger. All these parameters are determined and investigated in detail. Results show that impact responses of woven composites, including both in-plane and out-of-plane direction, can be predicted with enough accuracy.