Nonlinear finite element analysis of composite bolted lap joints: experimental vs numerical tests

Benoît Montagne (1) , Frederic Lachaud (1) , Eric Paroissien (1) , Dominique Martini (2) , Fabrice Congourdeau (2)

1 ICA - Institut Clément Ader
2 Dassault Aviation

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are widely used in aircraft industry because of their high mechanical properties. However these properties considerably drop when composite materials are drilled and bolted. Thus it is important to master the composite bolted joints behavior to avoid the structural failure. Progressive damage behavior for composite materials developed at Institut Clément Ader (ICA) is implemented on finite element (FE) models to simulate the behavior of supported single lap joints and double lap joints specimens. An in-plane shell model is sufficient to accurately simulate double lap joint tests. However this kind of model does not allow for an accurate representation for a single lap joint test because of the out of plane phenomena occurring during the test. A model with shell behavior is then developed. Damaging scenarios are elaborated to identify the composite material degradations leading to the structural stiffness loss. Compressive then tensile fiber failure in the 0° plies are the main reasons of this stiffness loss.

Mots clés: Composite materials; Bolted joints; Finite element analysis; Damage model

Domaines: Matériaux et structures en mécanique [physics.class-ph]

Benoît Montagne, Frederic Lachaud, Eric Paroissien, Dominique Martini, Fabrice Congourdeau. Nonlinear finite element analysis of composite bolted lap joints: experimental vs numerical tests. The 22nd International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM22), Aug 2019, Melbourne, Australia. pp.1-11. ⟨hal-02881211⟩