THREE-DIMENSIONAL PROGRESSIVE DAMAGE ANALYSIS OF FRP COMPOSITE BOLTED JOINTS

Joints play very significant role on the overall performance of any structure. Unfortunately, there is a lack of standard analysis procedure and design methodology for the bolted joints used in fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) composite structures. Composite bolted joints are very complicated to analyse and a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model is required if we want to go for numerical analysis. In this project, a 3D FE based progressive damage model has been developed to analyse a composite bolted joint efficiently. This numerical model can consider different design variables such as, (i) bolt-hole clearance, (ii) bolt torque, (iii) lamination scheme etc. The proposed model uses solid brick element C3D8R, available in Abaqus. Progressive damage algorithms have been integrated with Abaqus using user-defined material subroutine (UMAT). The present model gives accurate results in terms of load-deflection behavior, failure load, surface strains etc. when compared to experimental results.