Fracture Studies and Stress Analysis of Fiber Reinforced Composite Using FEM

Composite material is a combination of two or more materials on a macroscopic scale to form a useful material. Composite find tremendous application in marine, automobile, sports & recreation equipments etc. Hence a quantum of research is going on in order to find the improvements in existing combination of composites. One of the most promising composite in the current scenario is Carbon Fabric Reinforced Polymers (CFRP). The validation of a composite under varied flaw condition is also an important aspect and Finite element approach is one of the methods for such process. In the current work an attempt has been made to evaluate the various stresses near the crack field using FEA approach. ANSYS 13 Version is used for modelling& analysis. The composite with three volume fractions & various crack configuration &orientation are chosen. From the study of Analytical & Numerical results it can be seen that the line crack is more prone to failure than any other crack configuration. The Analysis carried out on Elliptical crack with axis orientation along and across the direction of loading shows that crack oriented along the direction of loading fails at early levels than other orientation. It can be seen that Numerical results are in agreement with Analytical Results. Keywords-Composite Material, Finite Element Analysis, Fracture Mechanics, Stress Analysis