Static indentation and corresponding damage of composite laminate

Criteria for intralaminar and delamination failures of composite laminate were developed in which transverse residual shear deformation and interfacial residual opening were modeled. A brick finite element including multiple-plies was suggested in order to decrease computing costs in ply-by-ply damage analysis of composites. Quasi-static indentation tests were conducted to a carbon fiber/epoxy matrix composite laminate. The indent depth under different contact force was measured and damage areas were obtained by C-scan. The experiments were simulated by the proposed models in the Abaqus by user-defined material subroutine (UMAT). The damage modes corresponding to the characteristic points on tested force-displacement curves were identified via numerical simulations. The proposed models are validated by experimental measurements.