Modeling 3D transverse elasto-plastic damage of unidirectional fiber-reinforced polymer composites using a smeared crack approach

This work presents a novel formulation of a 3D smeared crack model for unidirectional fiber-reinforced polymer composites based on a stress invariant approach for transverse yielding and failure initiation, and on a continuum damage approach. This formulation is developed to facilitate the implementation in an implicit solver, increasing solution robustness and computational efficiency in quasi-static and long duration analyses. The performance of the model is evaluated using monotonic and non-monotonic damage evolution, verified with single element tests to demonstrate the consistency of the proposed formulation. Additional benchmark examples regarding off-axis tension and compression tests are simulated and compared with the experimental results, showing good agreement for the plastic response, failure load and failure strain.