Prediction ability analysis of macroscopic strength criteria for composites

Macroscopic strength criteria for composites were summarized and reviewed. The prediction abilities of five of the most representative strength criteria were analyzed comprehensively. Firstly, the theoretical failure envelopes of AS4/3501-6 material under different plane stress states were established based on each strength criterion, which were used to show the physical significance of each strength criterion. Then, considering the dispersity of strength, probabilistic failure envelops and strength scattering zones for four kinds of materials were set up based on each of the strength criterion with the Monte-Carlo method. Finally, several groups of experiment data were adopted to evaluate the prediction abilities of each strength criterion objectively. The evaluation results show that prediction results of every strength criterion are impossible to match all of the test results perfectly. Compared to the Max-Stress criterion, Hashin criterion and Tsai-Wu criterion, the prediction abilities of Puck criterion and LaRC03 criterion are relatively better, and have more reasonable explanation for damage mechanisms of composites.