Experimental and numerical analysis of a thermoplastic lamina for composite material

Thermoplastic composites nowadays belong to an interesting class of materials for different type of industries. Those materials present a considerable number of advantages compared to the thermosetting composites. Their low density, low production cost, recyclability, are some of the positive aspects encouraging their usage. The numerical simulation is still an open research field due to the peculiar behaviour of the thermoplastic composites. According to that, this works starts a detailed numerical study in which the main deformation mechanisms are simulated using different modelling approaches. In this overview, the object of this study is a fully polypropylene composites made up of woven polypropylene laminas. These laminas are stacked and hot pressed. Previous research showed a ductile and plastic crush behaviour of this material, in which the main failure mode is governed by the delamination. Firstly, an experimental campaign is carried out, in order to define the constitutive properties of the single lamina. Woven laminas are orthotropic composites responding differently according to the direction of the load. Yarn test was executed to capture the tensile modulus and the strength, whereas the Bias-Extension test was carried out to examine the in-plane shear properties. The definition of those properties required several considerations and a detailed analysis because the load applied in the test is directed neither along the weft nor along the wrap direction. For this reason, geometrical approximations and hypothesis about the boundary condition are necessary to evaluate the shear stress and the shear angle parameters. Hence, three different FE models were developed in LS-DYNA and results were validated against the experimental tests. Two geometry discretization method and three material models were implemented. The first numerical model was developed for fabric materials and it represents a macro-mechanics approach with low computationally cost. The second model instead accounts for the fabric architecture, allowing to evaluate the weave geometry and the reorientation effect of the yarns during the deformation. The third model represents the discrete architecture of the fabric, modelling the specimen at the tape level. The numerical results showed a good approximation of the experimental evidence, especially considering the second numerical model. This material model confirmed the geometrical assumptions used to define the mechanical properties. This work gives a first important step for the simulation of components made of thermoplastic composites and with more complex geometry using a mesoscopic approach.