A mesoscale mechanical model of needle-punched carbon/carbon composite with beam-brick combined element

Needle punching carbon/carbon composite (NP C/C) has merits of high specific stiffness and strength and especially of excellent high-temperature strength retention, meanwhile it possesses improved interlaminate strength with relatively low manufacturing cost. But the needle punching technology may damage its in-plane properties for introducing local defeats inevitably. A mechanical prediction of NP C/C reflecting its meso-scale architectural features is desired. In this study, a beam-brick combined finite element (BBE) model was developed for predicting the mechanical behaviors and damage processes of NP C/C. In this model, beam elements represent the fiber directional properties in unidirectional fiber cloth (UDC) ply and short cut fiber felt (SCF) ply, while brick elements simulate properties of other directions in them. The displacement compatibility between beam and brick elements was established via their shape functions. The damage laws were employed in these two elements. The proposed model was used to simulate tensile and compressive experiments of an NP C/C and good agreements with test data were found. This BBE model can characterize the meso-structure and main mechanical behaviors of NP C/C and its meso-structure modeling is simpler and the computation requirement is lower compared with the traditional meso-mechanic models which built all with brick elements.