A new multi-scale framework for analyzing the thermo-mechanical coupling mechanism of the composite laminates.

The present article investigates the failure mechanism of the composite laminates with respect to a coupled thermo-mechanical effect. To this end, a novel coupled thermo-mechanical modeling scheme is presented. To accurately capture the nonlinear deformation at macro- and micro-scale affected by the temperature field, the finite volume method is employed to compute the thermal stress, which is introduced into the representative volume element to evaluate the whole microscopic stress field and the macroscopic mechanical behaviors on basis of the finite volume direct averaging micromechanics. In addition, a visco-plastic constitutive model with full consideration of the temperature effect is implanted into the presented multi-scale model to investigate their nonlinear responses. The thermo-mechanical coupling test scheme is subtly designed, and the experimental data shows a high consistency with the theoretical results. On this basis, the microscopic morphology of the fracture surface is further characterized. It is revealed that an elevate temperature improve the matrix toughness to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]