Bearing capacity of composite mechanical joint with hole delamination

The mechanical properties of the composite mechanical joint with hole delamination were studied by compressive test and numerical simulation. The loading capacity and failure mode of different test specimens were obtained by the compression test. In finite element simulation, the three-dimensional finite element model of composite mechanical joint was established based on ABAQUS software and the cohesive element was adopted to simulate the delamination. A good agreement was reached between the experiment and finite element method and the validity of the numerical method was verified. The failure mode, damage initiation and damage propagation of the composite structure were analyzed by the numerical model. A series of parametric studies were also performed to study the effects of the hole delamination position, the size of the delamination and the shape of the delamination on the compressive property of the composite mechanical joint. The results show that the load carrying capacity of the structure is the strongest when the delamination is located in the straight hole region and the bearing capacity of the composite structure with ellipse delamination is much bigger than the structure with square and circular shape delamination. In addition, no matter how the delamination shape changes, the delamination expands in the direction of compression as a semicircular shape.