Abstract
An elastic-plastic material model for simulating the crush behaviour of random fibre reinforced thermoset composites is presented. The model is implemented for shell elements in the ABAQUS/Explicit finite element package using the VUMAT user defined subroutine and is intended to allow efficient simulation of the crash behaviour of thin walled composite structures. The model consists of three parts: an elastic model; a failure criterion; and a post-failure behaviour. The model was verified using results from tube crush experiments. The deformed shape and load-displacement responses showed good agreement with experimental results. A sensitivity study was carried out using the model to see which aspects of the post-failure behaviour had the strongest influence on the crush response. It was found that the tensile behaviour had the strongest influence on the results followed by the compressive behaviour, which had a weak influence, and the shear behaviour, which had almost no effect.
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