Peridynamic Modeling of Compression After Impact Damage in Composite Laminates

This study presents a peridynamic (PD) simulation of compression-after-impact (CAI) of a laminate in two subsequent stages of impact and compressive type of loading. In the first stage, a transient analysis is performed that simulates the motion of a rigid impactor hitting a laminate resulting in matrix and delamination damage. After the impactor rebounds and the transient effects due to impact die out, the simulation continues for additional time steps under compressive in-plane loading resulting in further damage and eventual structural failure of the laminate. The PD simulations effectively capture the deformation fields and damage patterns due to impact and subsequent compressive loading until failure. The predictions are consistent with the experimentally observed damage patterns due to impact and subsequent compressive failure load.