theoretical and

applied fracture
mechanics
ELSEVIER Theoretical and AppliedFracture Mechanics27 (1997) 13-20

Interlaminar cracking of composite shells

E.E. Theotokoglou
Department of Engineering Science, Section of Mechanics, The National Technical University of Athens, GR-15773 Athens, Greece

Abstract

Experiments and two-dimensional finite-element analysis are carried out for unidirectional and angle-ply curved
laminates. These laminates are used for deep sea applications and offer considerable advantage over their metal counterparts.
Much work has recently been devoted to the failure mechanisms of thick composites. Delamination growth of thick
composite laminates and shells is also pertinent to the structural performance and certification of underwater composite
shells. In this study, specimens are produced and tested for failure. A linear and geometric non-linear two-dimensional finite
element analysis of the end-notched flexure specimen is performed to evaluate the compliance and Mode-II strain energy
release rate G n.

1. Introduction [1], delamination also tends to structures. Defect

The use of composite cylinders for deep sea
applications offers considerable advantage in terms
of buoyancy on account of the high specific proper-
ties. Much work has recently been devoted to the
performance of thick-walled composite cylinders [1],
but the influence of defects has received little atten-
tion. Defect growth in thick composite shells is
important to the design and manufacture of underwa-
ter vehicles. As demonstrated by extensive studies
related to aerospace applications of composite struc-
tures [2,3], the interlaminar 'delamination' failure
mode, which involves crack propagation between the
plies in a laminated composite, is also expected to be
critical for thick composite structures.
Applications of composites to marine structures
under biaxial compression are currently limited to
their inability to attain the theoretical compressive
strength of the material, because of defects intro-
duced in processing and manufacturing. In addition
to fiber wrinkling that causes kink band formation
criticality assessment should therefore include inter-
laminar cracking. This is particularly important for
thick and curved composite structures. For filament
wound cylinders, delamination also occurs between
angle-plies (e.g. + ~9). Previous works on delamina-
tion has been limited to crack propagation in unidi-
rectional (0 °) composites.
Delamination studies for marine structures in-
volve analysis of composites with curved geometries,
angle-ply beams, and crack interfaces. Only a few
papers are available [4-9] on this subject.
This paper is concerned with interlaminar crack
propagation in beam specimens cut from flat panels
and cylindrical shells used for marine applications.
These specimens are tested in Mode II.
A linear and geometric non-linear two-dimen-
sional finite element analysis of the end-notched
flexure (ENF) specimen, is performed to determine
the specimen compliance and the strain energy re-
lease rate GII. The contact problem is included in the
finite element model and the strain energy release

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14 E.E. Theotokoglou / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 27 (1997) 13 20

Table 1 ,P
Properties of unreinforced resin (in mean and standard deviation)
Material E (OPa) Kjc (MPa ~m-m) G,. (J/m:)
Epoxy 2.58 (0.14) 0.70 (0.08) 175

rates are evaluated using the virtual crack closure

pl2 %
technique. Finally, the finite element results are com-
pared with the experimental results and the bean~ Fig. 1. End-notch flexure specimen.
theory solutions [9,10].

t shows a schematic of the ENF specimen where the

2. Material properties
crack is subjected to Mode II loading. The ENF
specimens were machined to give dimensions of
The materials tested are made of g l a s s / e p o x y
2L = 100 m m and an overall length of 125 mm. The
laminates. The epoxy type is LY556 from Ciba
thickness 2h of the unidirectional (UD) specimens is
Geigy, cured with hardener HY917 [1 1]. Table 1
from 4.62 to 4.76 ram.
gives the elastic and fracture toughness properties
In the case of tubes reinforced at [_+30] 6 the
[11]. The reinforcing fibers are of E-glass with mod-
specimens were cut from the composite cylinders as
ulus of elasticity 72.5 GPa and Poisson's ratio 0.3.
shown in Fig. 2. The geometrical parameters of the
Both unidirectional laminates and cylinders with
specimens are the same as those for the LID where
[-t-3016 lay up were filament wound by S E R M A
the inner radius of the cylinder is R / = 80 mm as
A.E. Mulhouse. The fiber volume fraction is 52.4%.
shown in Fig. 2. The thickness (2h) of the angle-ply
The internal diameter of the cylinder is 160 mm and
specimens varies from 5.00 mm to 5.11 ram. Shear
the nominal wall thickness is 5 ram. The laminates
loading is applied to the crack front for the ENF
are not symmetric about their mid-surface. The film
specimen shown in Fig. 3.
defects were placed between the 6th and 7th layers.
The orthotopic material properties of unidirec-
tional E - g l a s s / e p o x y composites based on microme-
chanics calculations [12], are listed in Table 2, where
the subscripts 1, 2 and 3 correspond to the longitudi-
nal transverse and thickness directions, respectively.

Film Inse~rt \
at mid-thickness "Beam Specimen
3. Experimental procedure

Specimens were cut from flat panels and cylindri-

cal shells, and tested at the French Oceanographic
research organization I F R E M E R (Brest Center). Fig.

Table 2
E-glass/epoxy material properties '~
Etl (GPa) E22 (GPa) GIz (GPa) G23 (GPa) ul2 u,~ J,.<,,"-
39.22 7.59 1.93 2.95 0.291 0.291
Fig. 2. lnterlaminar fracture specimens taken from filament wound
a E33 = E22, P13 = /212' GI3 = GI2" cylinders containing implanted defects at mid-thickness.
 E.E. Theotokoglou / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 27 (1997) 13-20 15

l.Z Specimen 3
Specimen /+ ~
I
!

1.0 ,
7 ~
ENF Specimen
0.8 ,
Fig. 3. Beam fracture specimen for shear delamination fracture
testing of cylinder wall.

~. 0.6 )
The crack length is 25 mm. The load was applied
to the ENF specimens via rollers in a three-point
bend text fixture. Straight cylindrical supports were
used. The specimens were precracked from a Mode I
' /
a_ i i

test for the flat UD and curved [ + 30] 6 specimens. 0.20t*/ i I ~

The displacements are measured from the central
point taken via the crosshead displacement trans-
r
1.6 I ! ~ ! , 0 , ] , , ,
specimen 1 : i ...._. 0 2 /, 6 8 10 12 It,
• / ~r m
Ispeci " en- - 2 ,! ~ i: ~ N~. Displctcement d (mini
1./+ - - i Fig. 5. Load-displacement curves obtained by experiments in the
II / ' I , case of angle-ply [ + 30] 6 E-glass/epoxy curved laminates.
yll ,/~ ~ i
1.2
i' i

VII t ' ducer. The test specimens were loaded to failure.

t 1.0 III// !
Fig. 4 gives two load versus displacement curves of
l i D Mode II tests for the aluminum foil defect. For
the curved specimens [ + 30]6 with a precrack under
Mode I, the load-displacement curves are given in
~o.a , ) Fig. 5. The specimen dimensions, loads and dis-
) , placements at non-linearity for both cases can be
found in Table 3.
o.6 i
I
0.~ Table 3
Specimen dimensions, loads and displacements at non-linearity
Specimen Width (mm) Thickness P(N) d (mm)
O.Z (b) (mm) (2h)
UN E-glass/epoxy
Specimen 1 20 4.71 1015 3.675
o, l I Specimen 2 20 4.76 1098 3.881
0 5 10 15 2.0 25
Curved (+ / -30) E-glass/epoxy
Displacement d (ram) Specimen 3 20 5.04 566 3.45
Fig. 4. Load-displacement curves obtained by experiments in the Specimen 4 20 5.06 534 3.22
case of unidirectional E-glass/epoxy laminates.
16 E.E. Theotokoglou / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 27 (1997) 13-20

4. Analysis of the ENF specimens Eqs. (4) and (5) were modified in [10] to include
the effect of transverse shear deformation, thus
Load-line compliance, C, is defined as the ratio of 1.2L + 0.9a
the displacement, d, under the central loading point Cs~~ = CBv + (6)
to the applied load as given by 4bGi3h

c p
d
(2)
G~,H=G~T[1 +0.2(E,/Gl3)(h/a) 2] (7)
where Gi3 is the interlaminar shear modulus.
The energy release rate Gll takes the form [] 4]
p2 dC
G. (3) 5. Finite element analysis of the ENF-specimens
2b da
where a is the crack length and b is the width of the Much efforts have been made to analyze the ENF
specimen. specimen by two-dimensional finite element analysis
The load line compliance, C B'r, and the energy [15-18]. In general, analysis of the ENF-thick com-
release rate, G~T, have been obtained in [9] as posite specimen would require a three-dimensional
calculation in conjunction with a contact algorithm.
2L 3 + 3a
The contact area that could potentially extend along
CBT = 8 E 1bh 3 (4) the entire crack interface is an unknown. As a sim-
plification, the present study considers a two-dimen-
C~ "r = 9 a 2 p e / ( 1 6 e l b 2 h 3) (5)
sional analysis and precludes the edge effects. The
where L is the half-span of the beam, h is the four-node isoparametric plane strain finite element
half-thickness (Fig. 1) and E~, is the Young's modu- code, ANSYS [19], is utilized. Triangular plane strain
lus in the longitudinal direction. elements are adopted as transition elements between

t
4
-0.127mm- t~
0.127 mm

KIt
( CONTAC k8)-I----L
3-node element[ I-"
along crock [ l
interface [
[I
kk
II
0.127 mm

-[o.o127
_ I1"1111

I II l_J /
Crock Tip ~ -
0.127 mm

+'--'i
0.0127 mm
Fig. 6. Enlarged view of the crack tip deformed mesh (symmetric configuration).
 E.E. Theotokoglou/ Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 27 (1997) 13-20
Contact Surface and Nodes
-~' ~ Target Surface and Nodes
Fig. 7. CONTAC48, interface element definition [19].
fine and coarse mesh regions. Significant mesh re-
finement is provided to calculate the strain energy
release rate with accuracy. Elements at the crack tip
have an aspect ratio of unity and nominal length of
approximately of 0.0127 mm. Mesh refinement in
the vicinity of the crack-tip is consistent with that
used in [17,20]. The details of the deformed finite
element grid pattern near the crack tip is shown in
Fig. 6.
The frictionless contact problem is incorporated
into the finite element model by the connecting
nodes across the crack interface with the triangular
elements (CONTAC48) [19] of zero tensile stiffness
and infinite compressive stiffness. As illustrated in
Fig. 7, CONTAC48 is a two-dimensional point-to-
surface contact element which permits the specifica-
tion of the compressive stiffness, the crack-face
which considers as the target line, and a coefficient
of friction for the sliding surfaces. Finally, the finite
element mesh consists of 1576 isoparametric four-
node elements, 150 triangular elements and 200
CONTAC48 elements.
The strain-energy-release rates are calculated us-
ing the virtual crack-closure technique [21]. Since
only Mode II crack extension is considered, it suf-
fices to take the strain energy release rate component
G n, determined by
1
GEl : - ~ ~ a { F x i ( U k - U'k) }
where, Fxi are the forces at node i (Fig. 6) in the
x-direction. The quantities (u k - u'k) are the relative
tangential nodal displacements. A crack length of 25
mm and crack increment (Aa) of 0.0127 mm were
used.
For the angle-ply [ + 30] 6 laminates, the in-plane
mechanical properties given in Table 4 were calcu-
lated using the classical lamination theory [13]. The
17
material is considered to be macroscopically homo-
geneous and orthotopic while the structural details
on the sub-laminate level, such as the individual
plies are neglected.
6. Results and discussion
The compliances and energy release rate were
calculated for the range of different unidirectional
flat and angle-ply [-t-3016 curved specimens. The
normalized crack length ( a / L ) equals to 0.5.
The compliance values predicted with the friction-
less linear finite-element analyses and those from the
experimental procedure and the bending deformation
(Eqs. (4) and (6) are presented in Tables 5 and 6.
They correspond to the UD and curved specimens. It
is shown that the finite element CFE values are lower
than the experimental CEX values. It is also observed
that the finite element CFE values agree better with
the beam theory without taking the transverse shear
deformation into account. The finite element values
are lower than the beam theory and the transverse
shear deformation theory values and the maximum
difference is about - 3.6% and - 5.4% for the unidi-
rectional and the curved laminates respectively in the
case of beam theory and about - 7 . 5 % in the case of
transverse shear deformation theory. In addition, Eq.
(4) for CBT, provides excellent agreement (less than
0.2%) with experimental results in all cases investi-
gated. The good agreement between experimental
compliance and beam theory gives confidence to the
finite element models as an accurate description of
the ENF fracture specimen.
In order to determine the energy release rate, the
crack closure technique was applied. In Tables 7 and
8, finite element strain energy release rate calcula-
tions are correlated to beam theory results. As in the
(8) compliance case, the finite element analysis for the
values of G H, agrees better with the beam theory
Table 4
In-plane mechanical material properties of the angle-ply [+ 30]6
E-glass/epoxy
Exx (GPa) Eyy (GPa) Gxy (GPa) //xy
19.11 7.32 8.73 0.818
18 E.E. Theotokoglou / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 27 (1997) 13-20

Table 5
Comparison of compliance values from linear finite-element analyses, beam theory solutions and experimental results in the case of
unidirectional E-glass/epoxy laminates
Specimen FE analysis Experiment Beam theory Compliance ratio
CVE ( m / N ) × 10 - ° CEx ( m / N ) × 10 o CB3-( m / N ) × 10 6 CsH ( m / N ) × 10 -6 CFE/CEx CFE/CBT CFE/Cs~I
Specimen 1 3.496 3.621 3.626 3.776 0,965 0.964 0.926
Specimen 2 3.380 3.535 3.504 3.652 0.956 0.965 0.926

Table 6
Comparison of compliance values from linear finite-element analyses, beam theory solutions and experimental results in the case of
angle-ply ( + / - 30) E-glass/epoxy curved laminates
Specimen FE analysis Experiment Beam theory Compliance ratio
CFE ( m / N ) X 10 -6 CEX ( m / N ) X 10 ~ CBT ( m / N ) × 10 -6 CSH ( m / N ) X 10- 6 CFE/CE X CFE/CB T CFE/Cs H
Specimen 3 5.746 6.095 6.072 6.212 0.943 0.946 0.925
Specimen 4 5.686 6.030 5.989 6.129 0.943 0.949 0.928

Table 7
Comparison of G . values from linear finite-element analyses and beam theory solutions in the case of unidirectional E-glass/epoxy
laminates
Specimen FE analysis Beam theory Gn-ratio
G~E ( j / m 2) GBT ( j / m 2) GSln ( j / m 2) ~,,FEi c , ,BT O~#lo,S,n
Specimen 1 1720 1771 1813 0.971 0.949
Specimen 2 1940 1998 2046 0.971 0.948

Table 8
Comparison of G , values from linear finite-element analyses and beam theory solutions in the case of angle-ply ( + / - 30) E-glass/epoxy
curved laminates
Specimen FE analysis Beam theory Gn-ratio
G~E ( j / m 2) GBT ( j / m 2) GISIH( j / m 2) GnrE/GIIBT G.FE/GIISH
Specimen 3 882 922 934 0.957 0.944
Specimen 4 774 808 819 0.958 0.945

Table 9
Comparison of compliance and G u values from linear and non-linear finite-element analyses in the case of unidirectional E-glass/epoxy
laminates
Specimen Linear FE Non-linear FE Compliance ratio Gu-ratio
CFE ( m / N ) X 10 -6 GI~E ( J / m 2) CNFE ( m / N ) X 10 0 GNFE( j / m 2) CFE/CNFE GIIFE/G nNFE
Specimen 1 3.496 1720 3.501 1700 0.999 1.012
Specimen 2 3.380 1940 3.389 1917 0.997 1.012
 E.E. Theotokoglou / Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 27 (1997) 13-20
Table 10
Comparison of compliance and G u values from linear and non-linear f'mite element analyses in the case of angle-ply ( + 30) E-glass/epoxy
curved laminates
Specimen Linear FE Non-linear FE
CFE (m/N) × 10 -6 GI~E (J/m 2) CNFE (m/N) × 10 -6
Specimen 3 5.746 883 5.760
Specimen 4 5.686 774 5.702
than with the beam theory including transverse shear
deformation. Inspection of the results presented in
Tables 7 and 8, indicate that the maximum difference
is about - 3 % for the unidirectional and about
- 4.3% for the curved laminates in the case of beam
theory and about - 5.2% and - 5.6% respectively in
the case of transverse shear deformation.
To investigate the effect of finite rotations caused
by large deflections, the geometric nonlinear analysis
of the ENF fracture specimen is conducted with the
ANSYS finite element program [19]. This analysis is
also conducted without friction. Tables 9 and 10
show the comparison of CVE and G~E values ob-
tained from linear and geometric non-linear analysis
for a crack length of a = 0.5L. Both UD and curved
specimens are used. Linear and non-linear solutions
are in agreement with each other with maximum
differences about - 0 . 3 % for compliance and about
1.6% for G H, in the case of curved laminates.
7. Conclusions
The previous work is concerned with the interlam-
inar crack propagation of end-notched flexure (ENF)
specimens cut from flat panels and composite shells.
Based in this analysis the following conclusions are
reached.
• The calculated specimen compliance compares
satisfactorily with the experimental values. The max-
imum differences are found for the curved laminates.
In addition, the compliance and the energy release
rates G H are in good agreement with the beam
theory solution without transverse shear deformation.
• The maximum differences for the compliance
and the energy release rate Gl~ occurred for the
angle-ply [ q - 3 0 ] 6 c u r v e d laminates. These differ-
ences are reasonable, taking into consideration that
19
Compliance ratio Gn-ratio
GNFE( j / m 2) CFE/CNFE GIIFE/GHNFE
873 0.998 1.01 l
762 0.997 1.016
the curved laminates have been simulated by a plane
finite element model. The absence of an effect of
large deflect'ions on the evaluation of the energy
release rate GI~ is also investigated.
• The curved specimens gave much smaller G H
values than the flat UD specimens, suggesting that
there may be a significant Mode I component pre-
sent.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Professor Leif A. Carls-
son of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at
Florida Atlantic University for support and encour-
agement during the course of this investigation. Fur-
thermore, thanks are due to Dr. Peter Davies of the
French Oceanographic Institute IFREMER (Brest
Center) for supply with the experimental results.
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