Experimental and numerical investigation on the failure behavior of Bouligand laminates under off-axis open-hole tensile loading

The Bouligand structure is a fibrous laminate with uniaxial layers assembled periodically into a helicoidal pattern. Compared to other types of laminates, its resistance to in-plane damage still lacks clarification. The failure behavior of Bouligand laminates under off-axis open-hole tensile (OHT) loading was investigated compared to cross-ply and quasi-isotropic structures using experiment and numerical simulation. After verifying the progressive damage model based on Hashin criteria, the numerical predictions from various off-axis loadings were compared between these three structures. The results show that Bouligand laminates exhibit low but nearly stable OHT strength. In comparison, the cross-ply structure exhibits high OHT strength variation when loaded in different directions. With the change of off-axis angle, the OHT strength of the Bouligand structure changes by 10.1 % from 405.2 MPa to 364.1 MPa, while it changes by 69.1 % from 533.8 MPa to 165.1 MPa for the cross-ply structure. Besides, the Bouligand structure exhibits higher OHT strength when the off-axis angle exceeds 5 degrees. It also exhibits a more stable OHT strength than the quasi-isotropic structure. It is shown that the failure of fiber and matrix is the primary factor affecting the OHT strength of the laminate, while the delamination has little effect on the OHT strength.