A mesoscale model for damage, cracking and delamination prediction in composite materials

In this paper, we present and explore the capabilities of an enhanced version of what is called the "damage mesomodel for laminates". Previous works already proved that this mesomodel can be viewed as the homogenized result of micromodels involving common microdamage mechanisms: transverse microcracking, delamination, fiber-matrix debonding and fiber breakage. Here, we go one step further into the use of the mesomodel. The objective is to study the capability of the mesomodel to simulate industrial-size structures and determine how to deal with the difficulties related to its implementation. Particular attention is given to the nonlocal character of the model. A specific strategy is also proposed in order to deal with problems involving large numbers of degrees of freedom (DOF).