On the description of anisotropic damage in composite laminates

A general anisotropic damage theory of cracked laminates is formulated here. The deformation of composite laminates is composed of matrix elastic strains, pseudo-elastic damage strains due to cracking and permanent damage strains due to interlaminar slip. The surface of damage initiation is constructed according to the concept of linear elastic fracture mechanics for the virgin material. After the initial damage, a pesudo-elastic damage can be used to describe the damage behaviour if interlaminar slip is negligible. Damage evolution, load induced anisotropy and interlaminar intralaminar interaction for composite laminates are examined; the latter can perturb the normality structure of damage strain rate. Explicit expressions are given for pseudo-elastic (or secant) moduli of the damaging composite laminates, under a non-interacting assumption imposed on the cracks between different families.