Compressive experiment and damage simulation studies of composite structure with plies drop-off

Composite structure with plies drop-off is studied by compressive experiment and FEM. A user subroutine is implemented to ABAQUS to simulate the damage of structure. The simulation results agree well with experimental data. The experimental data and FEM simulation results show that the composite structure with plies drop-off is very complex. Especially in the transition segment, the properties of every section are different. At damage simulation, the initiation and development of three types of damage are predicted. The matrix cracking damage and the shearing damage of fiber-matrix occur simultaneously at first, and then fiber buckling damage is founded. The effect of matrix cracking and fiber-matrix shearing is remarkable and catastrophic to the whole structure. Fiber buckling intensifies this effect, the initiation and development of fiber buckling indicates that the structure loses carrying capacity at all.