Assessment of Progressive Failure Analysis Capabilities of Commercial FE Codes

Purpose – The main objective of this work is to assess the current capabilities of different commercial finite element (FE) codes in simulating the progressive damage of composite structures under quasi-static loading condition in post-buckling regime. Design/methodology/approach – Progressive failure analysis (PFA) methodologies, available in the investigated FE codes, were applied to a simple test case extracted from literature consisting in a holed composite plate loaded in compression. Findings – Results of the simulations are significantly affected by the characteristic parameters needed to feed the degradation models implemented in each code. Such parameters, which often do not have a physical meaning, have to be necessarily set upon fitting activity with an experimental database at coupon level. Concerning the test case, all the codes were found able to capture the buckling load and the failure load with a good accuracy. Originality/value – This paper would to give an insight into the PFA capabilities of different FE codes, providing the guidelines for setting the degradation model parameters which are of major interest.