Progressive failure prediction of FRP tubes by modified damage model

An accurate material model plays a significant role in predicting the progressive damage of fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) structures. A modified bilinear constitutive model is proposed to describe the stiffness degradation caused by the progressive intra-lamina damage, and has been embedded into the commercial software ABAQUS through the subroutine VUMAT. All coefficients, corresponding to various damage mechanisms, could be identified by specimen tests under typical loading conditions. As a case study, the compression test of a FRP composite tube is carried out and compared with the simulation results obtained by this model to verify the accuracy and versatility in predicting impact energy absorption and peak force as well as failure modes. Compared with other published simulation methods, the proposed model has better versatility, in which the progressive damage control coefficients are stable and insensitive to different types of FRPs.