Unlike the analysis, the evaluation still is a matter of investigation. Whether a given stress state of a composite material is leading to failure or not has been usually evaluated by easy criterions, which do not necessarily correspond to reality completely. Recently new physically based failure criterions for unidirectional fibre reinforced composites have been developed. As the application of such materials is still growing, further reinforcement in normal composite material direction is requested to further improve the material properties. Using such 3D reinforced composite, the delamination behaviour can be improved significantly.
Currently our focus is set on the simplified application of complex unidirectional failure criterions and the implementation into FEM tools like TRAVEST (pdf, 364kB). Further investigations consider the development and validation of failure criterions for 3D fibre reinforced composite materials.