Failure of Composite Materials under Multi-axial Static and Dynamic Loading

To facilitate and accelerate the process of introducing and evaluating new materials, it is important to develop/establish comprehensive and effective methods and procedures of characterization, modeling and failure prediction of structural laminates based on the properties of the constituent materials and especially the basic building block of the composite, the single ply or lamina. The plethora of available composite failure theories coupled with a dearth of reliable experimental data provides no definitive answer as to the best general approach to failure prediction. A new failure theory developed at Northwestern University has been proven very successful in predicting failure of a composite lamina under multi-axial states of stress and varying strain rates in cases where the biggest discrepancies were observed in predictions by other theories.