An adaptive floating node based formulation for the analysis of multiple delaminations under quasi-static loading

A novel and efficient numerical formulation for the modelling of multiple delaminations growth in laminated composite materials subjected to quasi-static loading is presented. The proposed formulation alleviates the high computational cost associated with models featuring cohesive elements by using a novel Adaptive Refinement Scheme and an...

Computational analysis of fracture and healing in thermal barrier coatings

Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC) systems are protective layers applied to critical structural components of gas turbines operating at high-temperature. A typical TBC system consists of three different layers, namely a ceramic Top Coat (TC), an active Thermally Grown Oxide (TGO) layer and a metallic Bond Coat (BC). The outer ceramic TC that protects...

Overcoming the cohesive zone limit in composites delamination: modeling with slender structural elements and higher-order adaptive integration

Cohesive element (CE) is a well-established finite element for fracture, widely used for the modeling of delamination in composites. However, an extremely fine mesh is usually needed to resolve the cohesive zone, making CE-based delamination analysis computationally prohibitive for applications beyond the scale of lab coupons. In this work, a...

On cohesive element parameters and delamination modelling

The cohesive element (CE) has been widely used to model delamination in laminated composites. The penalty stiffness, interfacial strength and fracture toughness are three CE parameters that often determine the accuracy of the numerical analysis by finite elements (FEs). The fracture toughness may be experimentally determined through standard...

High Order Adaptively Integrated Cohesive Elements: Development, implementation and testing on composite delamination

Composite delamination represents one of the most critical failure mechanisms occurring in composite structures. In case complex structures are being designed, numerical methods need to be employed. One of the methods to numerically simulate delamination in a Finite Element environment is through the employment of the Cohesive Elements, which...

Multiscale Fracture Simulations for Composite Materials

For failure in composite materials the fracture mechanisms at the microscopic scale, such as matrix cracking, fiber cracking, fiber-matrix debonding or combinations thereof determine the growth of crack at the macroscopic scale. The goal is to develop a simple failure criterion in terms of a bilinear Traction-Separation Law (TSL) for...

A cohesive element based model to describe facture and cohesive healing in elastomers

Several polymeric systems with intrinsic Self-Healing (SH) capabilities have been reported in literature. Many of them showed healing upon contact across the crack interface. Different parameters such as contact time, temperature, pressure or chemical activity determine the degree of healing obtained. In this work, a numerical simulation of the...

A cohesive elements based model to describe fracture and cohesive healing in elastomers

Several polymeric systems with intrinsic Self-Healing (SH) capabilities have been reported in literature. Many of them showed healing upon contact across the crack interface. Different parameters such as contact time, temperature, pressure or chemical activity determine the degree of healing obtained. In this work, a numerical simulation of the...