Analytical Determination of Fracture Load for Marine Composite Panels

Composites have diversity of structural applications in marine field. For the successful design of damage tolerant composite structures, it is necessary to know the failure mechanism as well as the ability of the structure to carry load after damage initiation. The present paper investigates damage mechanism particularly the interlaminar fracture for composite materials. Fracture load that initiates crack growth on flat rectangular laminate with an embedded delamination has been determined using Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT)？ in conjunction with finite element software ANSYS for mode I type loading (opening mode). A MATLAB code has been generated to find fracture load and to plot load –displacement curve using various classical methods.