Transverse cracking is probably the first and most dominant mode of damage in composite materials. In this paper, transverse cracking of cross-ply [02/90n]s (n = 2,3,4) laminates under uniaxial tension load was studied by means of experimental and numerical methods. In the numerical simulations, a simplified computational strategy only focusing on the damage of the resin was proposed and the mechanical response of the cracking cross-ply laminates was studied by finite element analysis of multi-scale representative volume elements (RVEs). In the RVEs, the longitudinal 0° plies were represented by macro-scale, homogeneous, orthotropic elastic solids while the 90° plies were modeled by the discrete fibers and the surrounding matrix resin in micro-scale. Based on researching the critical longitudinal mechanical strain ε x which initiates the cracks, the in-situ transverse ply strength and the stiffness degradation of the transverse plies, the simplified computational strategy proposed was proven correct. In addition, the crack initiation is sensitive to residual stress. Higher process-induced residual stress levels are dangerous to laminates, leading to early crack initiation.
Keywords: damage mechanics; finite element analysis; multi-scale modeling; residual stress; transverse cracking.