Stochastic failure modelling of unidirectional composite ply failure

Stochastic failure envelopes are generated through parallelised Monte Carlo Simulation of a physically based failure criteria for unidirectional carbon fibre/epoxy matrix composite plies. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the consequence on failure prediction of both statistical interaction of failure modes and uncertainty in global misalignment. Global variance-based Sobol sensitivity indices are computed to decompose the observed variance within the stochastic failure envelopes into contributions from physical input parameters. The paper highlights a selection of the potential advantages stochastic methodologies offer over the traditional deterministic approach.