A Direct Micromechanical Approach toward the Development of Quadratic Stress Gradient Failure Criteria for Textile Composites

¹ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, PO Box 116250, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-6250, USA
² US Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005-5066, USA

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

	Abstract

Based upon previous results of direct micromechanical method (DMM) analysis of the representative volume element (RVE) of a plain-weave textile composite, two methods for predicting failure envelopes are presented: a parametric ellipse-fitting scheme, and a 27-term quadratic stress-gradient failure criterion. Both include the consideration of micro level stress gradients and effectively predict failure in agreement with the DMM. The parametric ellipse-fitting method was found to agree with DMM results to within a few percent. The quadratic failure criterion was found to agree within 9.3%, but the method is more robust in its ability to predict failure for complex loading cases.

Key Words: textile composites, strength, finite element analysis

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