Fracture prediction of a 3D C/C material under impact

This paper deals with the dynamic behaviour up to fracture of a three-dimensional carbon/carbon composite (3D C/C). This study is conducted jointly by the LMT and the Centre d'Études de Gramat facilities, a research centre of the French weaponry administration. In the first part, a one and a half dimensional (1 1/2D) mesomodel dedicated to normal impact is described and used successfully. This model is build through the analysis of the one-dimensional wave propagation in the longitudinal yarns of fibres and the equivalent matrix, the two entities being linked by an interface. For more general impacts, a full three-dimensional mesomodel is needed. This model is presented and identified. The computation of such a model using a classical approach leads to considerable computation costs. In this paper are presented the first results obtained with a dedicated mesoscale computational strategy that is briefly described herein.