Analysis of composite skin/stiffener debounding and failure under uniaxial loading

In this paper, damage mechanisms in the composite bounded skin/stiffener constructions under monotonic tension loading are investigated. The approach uses experiments to detect the failure mechanisms, two and three-dimensional stress analysis to determine the location of first matrix cracking and computational fracture mechanics to investigate the potential for cracks and delamination growth. The laminates strength and damage mechanisms obtained from both experimental and finite elements analysis are presented for several laminates lay-up configurations. Observations on the performed experiments show matrix crack initiation and propagation in the skin and near the flange tip, causing the flange to almost fully debounded from the skin in some cases, interlaminar debounding and fiber breakage up to the failure of the components. The finite elements analysis is also show that the matrix cracks are initiated in the first skin layer for most of the cases. With increasing the applied load the matrix cracks are propagated through the thickness to reach the next layer and causes delamination between the two layers. With increasing the applied load this delamination is propagated up to the occurrence of unstable delamination growth or the first fiber breakage known as the final failure of the component. The obtained experimental failure loads are compared with those calculated by the finite elements analysis. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.