Damage simulation of repaired composite laminate with rectangular cut-out

Repaired composite laminate with rectangular cut-out is studied by tensile experiments and FEM simulation in this paper. A user damage subroutine is implemented to ABAQUS to simulate the damage of laminate. Good agreements between experimental data and numerical results are reached. From the experiment and FEM simulation results, the integrality of composite structure is destroyed due to the existence of cut-out. However, the asymmetry of repair gets this effect farther. From damage simulation, the initiation and development of three types of damages are predicted. The matrix cracking occurs at first, fiber–matrix shear and fiber break are subsequent. The effect of matrix cracking to the carrying capacity of structure is very small, but when fiber–matrix shear and fiber break occur, dangerous to structure, the carrying capacity of structure loses rapidly.