Predicting free edge delamination induced by thermal loading using finite fracture mechanics

The material mismatch between the dissimilarly oriented plies within laminated structures induces localised singular interlaminar stresses at free edges, under various loading conditions such as mechanical, moisture, or thermal. These interlaminar stresses lead to premature interlaminar cracking. This study introduces the application of Finite Fracture Mechanics (FFM) for predicting free edge delamination in angle-ply laminates under uniform thermal loading. The current framework assumes nucleation of semi-elliptically shaped crack at the dissimilar interface, resulting in a 3D FFM criterion. For a given material intrinsic properties, e.g. interlaminar fracture toughness and strength, calculation of quantities such as interlaminar stresses and incremental energy release rates are required. These quantities, necessary for the evaluation of the FFM criterion, are determined semi-analytically through expressions derived from dimensional analysis and finite element models. Dimensional analysis facilitates the finding of these quantities only once using non-dimensionalised functions. The resulting non-dimensionalised functions for stresses and energy release rates are not a function of thermal load and ply thickness. This eliminates the requirement to re-solve the underlying boundary value problem for varying loads and ply thicknesses. The accuracy of finite element models is confirmed against results from models available in literature and dimensional analysis is validated against numerical solutions. The 3D FFM system is solved by assuming a homothetic crack extension and is implemented as a standard constrained nonlinear optimisation problem. In addition to the 3D FFM, another model based on the Theory of Critical Distances (TCD) is employed for validation purposes. The predictions from both the 3D FFM and TCD are compared to those from models available in the literature.