A Method for Calculating Strain Energy Release Rates in Preliminary Design of Composite Skin/Stringer Debonding Under Multi-Axial Loading

Three simple procedures were developed to determine strain energy release rates, G, in composite skin/stringer specimens for various combinations of unaxial and biaxial (in-plane/out-of-plane) loading conditions. These procedures may be used for parametric design studies in such a way that only a few finite element computations will be necessary for a study of many load combinations. The results were compared with mixed mode strain energy release rates calculated directly from nonlinear two-dimensional plane-strain finite element analyses using the virtual crack closure technique. The first procedure involved solving three unknown parameters needed to determine the energy release rates. Good agreement was obtained when the external loads were used in the expression derived. This superposition technique was only applicable if the structure exhibits a linear load/deflection behavior. Consequently, a second technique was derived which was applicable in the case of nonlinear load/deformation behavior. The technique involved calculating six unknown parameters from a set of six simultaneous linear equations with data from six nonlinear analyses to determine the energy release rates. This procedure was not time efficient, and hence, less appealing. A third procedure was developed to calculate mixed mode energy release rates as a function of delamination lengths. This procedure required only one nonlinear finite element analysis of the specimen with a single delamination length to obtain a reference solution for the energy release rates and the scale factors. The delamination was extended in three separate linear models of the local area in the vicinity of the delamination subjected to unit loads to obtain the distribution of G with delamination lengths. This set of sub-problems was Although additional modeling effort is required to create the sub- models, this local technique is efficient for parametric studies.