A stochastic multiaxial fatigue model for off-axis cracking in FRP laminates

A model to predict off-axis crack evolution in multidirectional laminates subjected to multiaxial loading is proposed. The model applies multi-scale stress and local fracture mechanics analyses to distinguish between two microscopic damage mechanisms, which govern the damage evolution, as well as determining the magnitude of the damage evolution rate associated with each microscopic damage mechanism. The multi-scale analysis is based on the GLOB-LOC off-axis crack damage model, which is extended to include substantial new capabilities such as the influence of crack face sliding interaction and prediction of variations in the stress field due to the local crack density. The extension of the GLOB-LOC model introduces physically based multiaxial fatigue criteria for off-axis crack initiation and mixed-mode off-axis crack propagation. The extended GLOB-LOC model is implemented and it is demonstrated that good predictions are obtained for the damage evolution under various multiaxial stress conditions. Furthermore it is shown that the model only requires input from two different multiaxial stress states to obtain the material parameters for a given FRP ply.