Composite Material Failure Model Updating Approach Leveraging Nondestructive Evaluation Data

A novel failure model updating methodology is presented in this paper for composite materials. The innovation in the approach presented is found in both the experimental and computational methods used. Specifically, a dominant bottleneck in data-driven failure model development relates to the types of data inputs that could be used for model calibration or updating. To address this issue, nondestructive evaluation data obtained while performing mechanical testing at the laboratory scale are used in this paper to form a damage metric based on a series of processing steps that leverage raw sensing inputs and provide progressive failure curves that are then used to calibrate the damage initiation point computed by full-field three-dimensional finite element simulations of fiber-reinforced composite material that take into account both intra- and interlayer damage. Such curves defined based on nondestructive evaluation data are found to effectively monitor the progressive failure process, and therefore, they could be used as a way to form modeling inputs at different length scales.