Behavior of laminated fiber composite T-joint under web pull-off static tensile loading using finite-element analysis

Airframes are made of many laminated composites multi-cells structures whose central part constitutes a T-joint. A finite-element model was built to investigate the influence of the geometry of the part, the composition of the material and the configuration of the laminates on the fracture behavior of a T-joint under tensile loading. More specifically, the studied parameters were number of plies and type of material. The T-joint was modeled using Ansys(R) Solid46 elements having 8-nodes and 3 degrees of the freedom. Maximum stress criterion was used to determine the initiation site of the crack. Virtual crack closure method was applied to simulate the crack propagation path and direction using maximum strain energy release rates criterion.