Predicting interlaminar damage behaviour of fibre-metal laminates containing adhesive joints under bending loads

This study includes experimental and numerical investigations on fibre-metal laminate structures containing adhesive joints under static bending loads. Experimental tests were carried out Glare® 4B specimens manufactured in-house doubler joint features. Numerical analyses performed using Abaqus software including damage in the glass fibre reinforced polymer layers, ductile resin pockets (FM94 epoxy) plasticity metal layers. A new cohesive zone model coupling friction interfacial shear through-thickness compressive stress has been developed to simulate delamination initiation growth at metal/fibre interfaces with flexural loading. is implemented through a user-defined VUMAT subroutine Abaqus/Explicit two main approaches, firstly, combining stresses created interlaminar layers of as result secondly, considering elastic-plastic behaviour based trapezoidal law (which provides more accurate results for simulation toughened epoxy matrices than commonly used bilinear model). have validated against data from 4-point good correlation observed respect both crack evolution. Delamination failure noted be predominant modes expected. due higher mode-II introduced during which cause different evolution that seen axial stresses. Finite element revealed strength parameters generated compression significant effect predicting this type