Woven fabric composites-part I: Predictions of homogenized elastic properties and micromechanical damage analysis

In Part I, the finite element developments are described to first predict the homogenized elastic properties of woven fabric composites, followed by a progressive damage analysis for the subsequent investigation of micromechanical damage initiations and propagations in the representative unit cell of woven fabric composites. For progressive damage analysis, in-plane uniaxial tensile and shear loading are applied, respectively, to the unit cell. In order to make the boundaries of the unit cell remain straight, displacement control loading is applied instead of force control loading. The tensile and shear stress-strain curves are obtained and shown to be in good agreement with available experimental results. Utilizing the computational efforts in Part 1, the characterization of macro-crack initiation loads is carried out in Part 2 for the global damage analysis without the need to resorting to experimental data for the prediction of damaged properties.