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Laminate Damage Simulation
A composite material is made up of two or more different types of materials. Everyday examples are carbon fibre/epoxy composites, plywood, and reinforced concrete. The two constituent materials can be arranged in an ordered or random structure. Ordered composites include plywood or carbon fibre reinforced plastic laminates (CFRP), random structures composites include metal matrix composites and short fibre carbon reinforced composites as used in tennis rackets, for example.
Predicting the properties of the composite material can be very complicated but is well worthwhile, since many composites can be designed with an ideal blend of properties, making them far better for certain engineering tasks than traditional bulk materials.
The simulation work on this site is for layered or laminate structures. The layers are made up of parallel arrangements of long fibres usually embedded in a polymer matrix. The mechanical properties of laminates can be tailored by making them of plies, made of different combinations of fibre and matrix materials, with different orientations.
Composite materials have additional benefits over bulk materials in that they are more resistant to damage. When a laminate material is overstressed then the first mode of damage is matrix cracking. This simulation predicts how the matrix will crack under a given stress, and how the material properties will degrade. This is important information for a designer using these materials.
Virtual Testing
The Laminate Damage Simulator is an example of what has been dubbed "Virtual Testing" - the use of high quality models running on computers to carry out tests which would be expensive or impractical to do in reality. Select the above link to find out what advantages this approach gives, and where the future of materials testing lies.
Laminate Damage Simulator
Select this link to view the Laminate Damage Simulator, developed at NPL. This simulation interacts with a high-quality mathematical model running on the NPL server to predict the degradation of material properties of a laminate composite material under stress. You will need CosmoPlayer and a Java-capable Browser to use the simulator.