Multiscale numerical methodology for assessing fracture toughness enhancement due to nanoclay inclusion in fiber-reinforced polymer composites

• Published in: International journal of solids and structures 2022-06, Vol.246-247, p.111632, Article 111632
• Main Authors: Rivera-Santana, J.A., Figueroa-López, U., Guevara-Morales, A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Constants; Fiber reinforced plastics; Fiber reinforced polymers; Finite element method; Fracture toughness; Fracture toughness enhancement; Iterative algorithms; Iterative methods; Material properties; Multiscale modeling; Nanocomposite materials; Numerical homogenization; Polymer matrix composites
• ISSN: 0020-7683; 1879-2146
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2022.111632

•Toughening due to nanoclay addition on carbon fiber/epoxy composites is predicted.•Two-level homogenization is used to find the nanocomposite engineering constants.•Bisection method is useful for finding critical debonding and shear banding radii.•Numerical evidence shows that toughness enhancement is a multiscale phenomenon. With the purpose of serving as a design tool for improving composite material properties, the present work develops a numerical-computational algorithm capable of predicting engineering constants and toughness enhancement due to nanoclay addition to a carbon/epoxy material system. Based on the intersection method, the iterative algorithm finds the critical debonding and shear banding radii, which in turn give the corresponding toughness enhancements as output. In addition, the algorithm requires input data such as homogenized constants and energy release rates as well as stress and displacement fields at the nanoscale, all of them obtained in this work via finite element method-based unit cells. Numerical results for both engineering constants and toughness enhancements show that both phenomena are in effect multi-scale in nature and such results are consistent with the theoretical and experimental results available in the literature.