Axial crush simulation of composites using continuum damage mechanics: FE software and material model independent considerations

The finite element (FE) simulation of industrial size composite structures under crush loading is a challenging task. Currently, the vast majority of these simulations employ non-physical "tweaking"parameters that are undesirable and limit the confidence in their predictive capabilities. This paper investigates three different material models based on continuum damage mechanics (CDM) within two commercial FE software packages, ABAQUS/EXPLICIT and LS-DYNA, to identify FE-code and material model-independent capabilities, limitations and challenges of physically-based axial crush simulation of composite structures without the use of non-physical parameters for model calibration. In particular, we show that the commonly applied crack band scaling in CDM-based material models is not suitable for the simulation of axial crushing where the dominant mode of failure is fragmentation.