Numerical Simulation of the Process-induced Residual Stress in Composite Materials

Abstract

The pre-existing inner stresses in composite materials should be determined in order to avoid structural failure. Such stresses are accumulated during the manufacturing process. Thus, they are called “process-induced residual stress”. In this paper, the process-induced residual stresses in glass/epoxy composites were predicted by using micro-mechanical model in ABAQUS. Moreover, the effect of parameters such as the fiber volume fraction, cooling rate, and nature of the matrix were investigated. The viscoelastic nature of the epoxy was implemented in a UMAT code by using FORTRAN. The results showed that higher fiber volume fraction induces higher residual stress. However, the increase of the cooling rate slightly changes the residual stress values. Moreover, using elastic solution of the epoxy overestimated the residual stress.