Comparison of different failure criteria in numerical modeling of electron beam cured polymer nanocomposites

In recent times, fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have overtaken the huge market in the world replacing the old conventional materials due to its significant properties. The experimental work conducted to gather the mechanical properties takes alot of time as FRP composites comprises of various geometrical parameters. Therefore, to reduce the experimental encumbrance, the current work is focused on the numerical analysis using different failure criteria, to examine the bearing response of electron beam cured carbon fibre/epoxy (CF/E) composites joint and to get a suitable numerical model. In order to identify the failure of carbon-fibre/polymer composites joints, this work coupled progressive damage analysis (PDA) with the most appropriate failure criteria, namely the Hashin, Tsai-Wu and Maximum stress criteria. Results show that Hashin criterion gave the best suited bearing response predictions. Hashin criterion predicted the maximum bearing capacity in pristine joint specimens, in between 11 and 17% for greater values of W/D and E/D ratios. In multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) added joint specimens, the predicted values by Hashin criterion is in between 14 and 20%.