Calibration and validation of a 3D homogenised model to simulate the damage progression of pultruded GFRP composites

A damage progression failure model for tridimensional finite element (FE) analyses has recently been proposed, allowing the simulation of composites as homogenized materials, greatly reducing computational costs. It is able to predict the damage and post-failure behaviour of composites, while its calibration can be performed with data derived from the standardized experimental characterization of the composite materials. This paper presents the calibration of that model for 5 new glass-FRP pultruded profiles, followed by the simulation of different application/design cases: (i) wide compact tension; (ii) compact compression; (iii) web-crippling; and (iv) bolted double-lap connection tests. While the results show that further investigation is needed to address the experimental characterization of the in-plane shear properties and the numerical simulation of bearing failure, overall the models were well able to predict the experimental strength, post-failure behaviour, failure modes and damage patterns, showing that the feasibility of using this damage progression model as a design tool.