Progressive damage analysis for multiscale modelling of composite pressure vessels based on Puck failure criterion

This study proposed a method for progressive failure analysis to investigate the failure modes of 35 MPa Type III composite pressure vessels during hydraulic burst tests. Representative volume elements (RVEs) were introduced, and the degraded elastic parameters of composite, which include fibre and matrix failure modes, were calculated by the finite element analysis (FEA) method to obtain the macroscopic stiffness degradation parameters. The Puck failure criterion was adopted, and the effective elastic parameters calculated from RVEs was introduced by the UDSLFD subroutine to simulate the multiscale progressive damage of composite layers during hydraulic burst test. Combined with acoustic emission detection, composite microscopic photos and hydraulic burst test, the burst pressure and failure modes of the vessels were analysed. The results showed that meso-macroscopic finite element models could effectively predict the progressive damage of composite pressure vessel, such as matrix crack, interlaminar failure and fiber fracture under internal pressure loading. Finally, the predicted burst pressure was about 5.4% average difference of the actual experimental results. Besides, cylinder section of the vessels was the predicted blasting position, which was close to the actual tests. Thus, the proposed method can provide theoretical reference for the design and optimisation of composite pressure vessels.