Bending effect on the risk for delamination at the reinforcement/matrix interface of 3D woven fabric composite using a shell-like RVE

This paper presents a computational homogenisation-based technique for flexural effects in textile reinforced composite planar shells. An homogenisation procedure is used for the in-plane and the out-of-plane behaviour of three-dimensional woven composite shells, taking the in-plane periodicity of the material into account while relaxing any periodicity tying in the thickness direction. Several types of damage (matrix or reinforcement cracking, delamination, …) can appear in a composite material. In this paper, material non-linear computations are used to assess the importance of bending on the risk for delamination at the reinforcement/matrix interface. The normal and tangential stresses at the interface are computed and a simplified criterion for delamination is used for this purpose. The effect of flexural loading on the stress components responsible for a potential delamination failure mode at the interface is analysed. The values of interface stresses obtained by means of flexural homogenisation are compared with 3D homogenisation results using periodicity constraints along the thickness direction, and compared qualitatively with experimental facts available from the literature. The importance for taking flexural effects into account properly is emphasised.