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A modified mode I cohesive zone model for the delamination growth

in DCB laminates with the effect of fiber bridging

Yu Gong , Yixin Hou , Libin Zhao , Wangchang Li , Jianyu Zhang ,

Ning Hu

PII: S0020-7403(19)32998-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2020.105514
Reference: MS 105514

To appear in: International Journal of Mechanical Sciences

Received date: 12 August 2019

Revised date: 15 January 2020
Accepted date: 5 February 2020

Please cite this article as: Yu Gong , Yixin Hou , Libin Zhao , Wangchang Li , Jianyu Zhang ,
Ning Hu , A modified mode I cohesive zone model for the delamination growth in DCB lami-
nates with the effect of fiber bridging, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences (2020), doi:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2020.105514

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Highlights

 A three-linear CZM is proposed based on the microscopic failure mechanism of the

delamination in composite laminates.

 Bridging stress is experimentally obtained by J-integral method and implemented into the

new CZM using a user-subroutine UMAT.

 A sensitivity analysis shows that the interfacial strength has little effect on the simulated

results.

1
 A modified mode I cohesive zone model for the delamination growth in DCB

laminates with the effect of fiber bridging

Yu Gonga,b,c,, Yixin Houd, Libin Zhaoe, *, Wangchang Lif, Jianyu Zhanga, *, Ning Hua
a
College of Aerospace Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
b
Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science for National Defence of Aeronautical Digital Manufacturing

Process, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang 110136, China

c
Chongqing Key Laboratory of Heterogeneous Material Mechanics, Chongqing University, Chongqing

400044, China
d
AECC Sichuan Gas Turbine Establishment, Mianyang 621000, China
e
School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
f
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014,

China

Abstract: Fiber bridging has a significant influence on the delamination propagation behavior in

multidirectional composite laminates. Traditional pure mode I bilinear cohesive zone models (CZM)

do not consider the effect of fiber bridging and result in an inaccurate simulation on the

delamination behavior. This study proposed a physical-based three-linear CZM superposed by two

bilinear CZMs, which represent two different phenomena including the quasi-brittle matrix fracture

characterized by a higher peak stress and a shorter critical opening displacement, and the fiber

bridging characterized by a lower peak stress and a longer critical opening displacement,

respectively. The three-linear CZM was implemented in the commercial FE software using a

user-subroutine UMAT. Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) tests on the multidirectional composite

laminates with 0°/5° and 45°/-45° interfaces conducted in our previous studies are shown to have

large-scale fiber bridging in mode I delamination and are used to provide experimental data for

calibrating the new CZM. Good agreements between the predicted and tested results can be


Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gongyu@cqu.edu.cn (Y. Gong); lbzhao@buaa.edu.cn (L. Zhao); jyzhang@cqu.edu.cn (J. Zhang).
2
achieved by adopting this new CZM, demonstrating its applicability on predicting the mode I

delamination behavior in composite laminates with the effect of fiber bridging.

Keywords: Carbon fiber; Laminate; Delamination; Finite element analysis (FEA)

1 Introduction

One weakness of the widely used laminated fiber-reinforced composites is the risk of delamination,

due to the lack of reinforcement in the thickness direction. Delamination is regarded as one of the

most dangerous failure mechanisms in composite structure [1-3], as it develops inside of the

material rather than obvious on the surface and finally results in a significant decrease of

mechanical properties [4,5]. The characterization and prediction for delamination assume a

prominent position in the design of composite structures. Designs of new laminated composite

structures, currently based on expensive and time-consuming experiments, can greatly benefit from

advanced numerical techniques. Some fracture mechanics methods have been implemented in FEM

codes, such as the Virtual Crack closure Technique (VCCT) [6] to predict the delamination growth.

However, there are several drawbacks which limit its application, including the inability to predict

delamination onset and the need to pre-define the delamination path. There are also some recently

developed numerical modelling technologies for simulating delamination in composite structures,

e.g. cohesive zone model (CZM), embedded finite element method (E-FEM) [7], variational

multiscale cohesive method (VMCM) [8], augment finite element method (A-FEM) [9], floating

node method (FNM) [10], extended finite element method (XFEM) [11-13], extended cohesive

damage model (ECDM) [14] and continuum decohesive finite element (CDFE) [15]. A

comprehensive assessment on the VCCT, CZM and XFEM for the delamination growth modelling

in composites and a detailed discussion on their advantages and disadvantages have been conducted

by Heidari-Rarani and Sayedain [16].

The CZM can circumvent the aforementioned limitations and thus is an appealing alternative for

modelling the delamination behavior. Different cohesive laws, which present the relation between
3
tractions acting on separated crack faces in a cohesive zone near the crack tip and the interfacial

separation) have been proposed in the last four decades, such as bilinear, exponential, trapezoidal

and cubic forms [17,18]. Turon et al. [19] proposed a thermodynamically consistent model for the

simulation of delamination based on damage mechanics, where a novel constitutive equation is

developed to account for crack closure effects to avoid interfacial penetration. Lindgaard el al. [20]

proposed a mixed-mode CZM defined by the modified B-K criterion, where an adaptive numerical

integration scheme was used for improved accuracy and convergence of elements. Alfano [21]

conducted a benchmark study and comparison of prevalent CZM and concluded that the shape of

the CZM law has trivial effect on the delamination analysis. However, this is only true for case of

small-scale fracture process zone, where the size of fracture process zone is small compared with

the crack length and other physical dimensions of specimens [18]. Composite multidirectional

laminates are mostly used in practical engineering applications and delamination propagates in the

interface between plies with different fiber orientations [22-24]. In composite unidirectional and

multidirectional laminates, the large-scale fiber bridging usually occurs with the dimensions

comparable to the specimen's size [25,26]. The intact bridging fibers act as closing tractions applied

on the faces and result in an increased fracture toughness with the delamination growth, i.e. the

resistance curve (R-curve) [27-31], which is dependent on the specimen's geometry (such as the

thickness of specimen) and should not be considered as a material property [32-35]. In such case,

the shape of the CZM law becomes important for delamination growth analysis and traditional

bilinear CZMs cannot capture the delamination behavior well due to the ignorance of fiber bridging

effect [17,18,25,36,37].

To include the effect of large-scale fiber bridging, Gong et al. [36,37] proposed to integrate the

R-curve into the traditional B-K and power law criterions. Numerical simulations give good results

compared to experimental ones for the standard MMB delamination tests. However, the proposed

criterions are only effective for the one-dimensional delamination growth while not capable for

two-dimensional delamination prediction. Developing new CZMs to present failure mechanisms on

4
both small and large scales is another approach. This can be achieved by adding complexity to the

shape of the cohesive law [18]. In terms of this, Sorensen et al. [38] and Tamuzs et al. [39] applied a

three-part cohesive law. The first part of the law is a bilinear traction-separation relation accounting

for crack initiation and the second part characterizing the bridging traction distribution with an

exponential decaying function. Jensen et al. [18] developed a multi-linear CZM with an arbitrary

number of line segments enabling simulation of delamination in composite materials with R-curve

effects. Sørensen et al. [40] determined the cohesive law by measuring the J-integral and

end-opening of the cohesive zone of DCB specimens loaded with pure bending moments, which

agreed well with mirco-mechanical modelling for the fiber bridging problem. Airoldi and Dávila

[28] applied two procedures for determining the shape parameters of cohesive laws required to

predict delamination growth behavior. The first method extracted the cohesive parameters from an

accurate experimental R-curve by a new semi-analytical equation. The second method identified

material parameter by minimizing the error between the averaged experimental and numerical

load-displacement curves. Compared with the first method, the second one is advantageous when

inaccuracies are brought by the fiber bridging in measuring the experimental fracture toughness.

Canal et al. [41] proposed a new CZM to assess the thickness scaling effect associated with the fiber

bridging. The new CZM was developed through a computation strategy utilizing multi-scale

modeling approach which allows mapping micromechanical simulations into continuum finite

element representations for macro-scale analyses. In addition, an embedded cell model of the DCB

specimen was applied which explicitly accounts for the physical behavior including the

delamination and the bridging bundles on the fracture plane. Farmand-Ashtiani et al. [42] measured

the strain by means of embedded fiber bragg grating sensors and applied an iterative approach to

identify the bridging law in the DCB specimens of different thickness. The identified bridging law

is employed in a CZM to predict delamination in unidirectional DCB specimens. Daneshjoo et al.

[43] proposed a novel mixed mode I/II micromechanical bridging model based on the calculation of

the delamination bridging zone energy absorption to account for the fiber bridging effects. Gutkin et
5
al. [44] proposed a semi-analytical methodology for identifying the parameters of tri-linear cohesive

laws from experimental R-curves for DCB and Compact Tension specimens. The cohesive

parameters are obtained using assumed crack profiles and numerical analyses are used to calculate

specimen compliances at different crack lengths. The methodology does not consider the effect of

the bridging tractions on the assumed displacement profiles and the error in the toughness obtained

by conventional data reduction schemes. Hansen et al. [45] proposed a CZM for simulating

multi-scale failure mechanisms in the glass-epoxy laminates using a combination of bilinear and

higher-order polynomial functions. Others attempted to use tri-linear cohesive laws, wherein one

line segment is added to the traditional bilinear cohesive law to present a simple linear distribution

of the bridging stress. For example, Dávila et al. [46] proposed a procedure for superposing two

bilinear cohesive laws to approximate the experimentally determined R-curve. In the same way,

Heidari-Rarani et al. [17] proposed a three-linear CZM with physical background, which is the

superposition of two bilinear CZMs, presenting the quasi-brittle matrix fracture characterized by a

higher peak stress and a shorter critical opening displacement, and the fiber bridging characterized

by a lower peak stress and a longer critical opening displacement, respectively. This method is

efficient due to its dependency on the R-curve while no requirement to measure the crack tip

opening experimentally.

The goal of this study is to propose a three-linear CZM with simple parameters required, which is

based on the microscopic mechanism of the delamination failure. The organization of the paper is as

followings: In Section 2, the traditional three-linear CZM in the literatures is briefly introduced and

discussed. Afterwards, a new physical-based three-linear CZM is proposed. Tests used for

validating the new CZM are introduced in Section 3. Section 4 establishes a numerical delamination

model with the implementation of the new CZM. Comparisons between the experimental and

numerical results obtained in composite laminates are made to verify the applicability of this new

CZM. Finally, the influence of the interfacial strength on the numerical results is analyzed.

6
2 New three-linear cohesive zone model

It has been shown that material softening and the R-curve are directly related to each other and that

bilinear laws cannot accurately represent toughening mechanisms causing an R-curve response [17].

The method of superposition of two bilinear bridging laws is useful to obtain the three-linear CZM

accounting for the toughening mechanisms, which avoids the need to develop cohesive elements

with complex bridging laws. In this section, the traditional three-linear CZM in the literature is

briefly introduced and discussed. A new physical-based three-linear CZM is subsequently proposed

and its constitutive law is derived.

2.1 Traditional three-linear CZM in the literatures

Fig. 1 shows the traditional three-linear CZM proposed in Refs. [17,46]. It is assumed that the two

bilinear CZMs peak at the same displacement jump δ0. The sum of two arbitrary bilinear CZMs

describing bridging phenomena results in a three-linear CZM. The blue line denotes a bilinear CZM

with a short critical opening displacement δf1, characterizing the quasi-brittle matrix fracture or

micro-cracking formation. The red line denotes a bilinear CZM with a longer critical opening

displacement δf2, characterizing the fiber bridging. Each bilinear CZM includes three critical

parameters: the initial interfacial stiffness K, the interfacial strength σ and the fracture toughness G.

As illustrated in Ref. [46], the bilinear CZM can be described by the proportions of interfacial

strength  01 =n 0 ,  02 = 1-n   0 , and the fracture toughness Gini=mGprop and Gbri=(1-m)Gprop with

0≤n, m≤1, so that Gprop=Gini+Gbri and σ0=  01   02 . The m and n are defined as the fracture toughness

ratio and the strength ratio, respectively. Their value can be calculated by the following Eqs. (1) and

(2) [47].

Gini
m (1)
Gprop

7
  2 (1  m) Ez  Gprop m 1 m
1   , 
 3 lcz 0 2
n 1 n
n (2)
 2  m Ez  Gprop , m  1  m

 3 lcz  02 n 1 n

where γ is an empirical parameter which depends on the model and the suggested value is 0.884, lcz

is the length of the fracture process zone. Ez is the through-the-thickness Young’s modulus. For

transversely isotropic materials, Ez is assumed to be equal to the transverse Young’s modulus (E2).

Once the m and n are determined, the bridging strength σb, which is the maximum bridging stress in

the fiber bridging zone, can be calculated by Eq. (3) and the CZM constitutive law can thus be

obtained.

 1 n m  (3)
 b = 0 1  n  1   
 n 1 m 

The CZM obtained by the superposition is efficient for the simulation of delamination

propagation with the large-scale fiber bridging. However, in the traditional three-linear CZM, it is

assumed that the two bilinear CZMs peak at the same displacement jump δ0. This assumption

indeed does not conform to the realistic microscopic mechanism of delamination failure, and this

will be discussed in the following Section 2.2.

2.2 Constitutive law of a new cohesive zone model

Fig. 2(a) shows the new three-linear CZM. The blue and red lines denote a bilinear CZM

characterizing the quasi brittle matrix fracture and the fiber bridging, respectively. At the initial

stage (0≤δ<δ0), both the interface and fibers bear tensile loading simultaneously. However, the

fibers are not peeled-off from the matrix and cannot bridge the delamination faces. In this case, the

interface traction is dominant and much higher than the bridging traction. As the crack opening

displacement increases, δ0≤δ<δb, the interface gradually damages with a decreasing load capability,

as shown in Fig. 2(b). Because a new delamination still not occurs, the bridging fibers are wrapped

up by matrix and the bridging traction is relatively small. When the crack opening displacement

arrives the critical damage onset displacement of the interface (δ=δb), a new delamination surface is
8
created and the matrix starts to spalling [48]. The peeled-off bridging fibers hinder delamination

propagation by restraining the fracture surfaces at this point, as shown in Fig. 2(c). When δb<δ<δf,

the bridging fibers cause extra growth resistance individually. The new delamination surface is

opened under tensile loading, damaged fibers carry loads until the final failure displacement δf is

arrived, at which point the bridging fibers are broken.

Different from the assumption in the traditional three-linear CZM that the two bilinear CZMs

peak at the same displacement jump, the bridging traction peaks at the complete failure

displacement of interface in this new CZM. This means the damage onset displacement of bridging

fibers δb is same with the complete failure displacement of interface, which is consistent with the

micro failure mechanism during the delamination growth in composite laminates with the effect of

fiber bridging.

The three-linear, softening constitutive behavior for single-mode loading shown in Fig. 2 can be

defined as:

 = 1  d  Dij0 (4)

 0,   0

1  K AB  1   0  ,    
 
K0    
 0 b

d   (5)
1  K BC 1   f  ,    
  
K0   
b f


 1,   f
where d is a global damage variable. Dij0 is the initial stiffness tensor and defined as:

Dij0 = ij K0 (6)

The scalar parameter K0 is a penalty stiffness, which is equal to the sum of initial stiffness of CZM

characterizing quasi brittle matrix fracture, K1, and that of CZM characterizing the fiber bridging,

K2. KAB and KBC are the slope of AB and BC lines, respectively. They can be obtained by Eqs.

(7)(8).

9
  b   0  K 2 0  (7)
K AB 
b  0

b
K BC  (8)
b  f

The parameters in the three-linear CZM include the initial fracture toughness Gini, the

steady-state fracture toughness Gprop, the interfacial strength σ0 and the bridging strength σb, and the

initial stiffness K1 and K2. The initial and steady-state fracture toughness can be determined by

standard delamination tests. The bridging strength σb can also be experimentally determined by

J-integral method using DCB tests. A referenced value of the initial stiffness K1 can be analytically

prescribed from a general linear-elastic CZM as: K1=2Ez/h [49], h is the half thickness of a DCB

specimen. The finally adopted value of K1 should be as high as possible (preferably infinite which is

not possible for computational reasons) in order to ensure compatibility of the undamaged interface.

As mentioned earlier, in the new CZM, it is assumed that the bridging traction peaks at the complete

failure displacement of interface. Under this condition, there are only one independent parameter

required to be numerically determined, i.e. the interfacial strengths σ0. According to Ref. [22], the

interfacial strength is difficult to be measured by experiments. An important conclusion from this

reference is that the value of the interfacial strength should be 55~65% of the interlaminar strength

of the matrix, which is a useful guidance for choosing the interfacial strength in this study.

3 DCB test and results

DCB tests are conducted to provide test data for validating the new CZM. Multidirectional

laminates made of T700/QY9511 bismaleimide prepregs were manufactured. The material

properties [50] are E11 = 130 GPa, E22 = E33 = 10.4 GPa and ν12 = ν13 = 0.3, and the tensile strength

of the matrix is 100MPa. Specimens with two kinds of lay-up 016//(+5/-5/06)S and

(+45/-45/06)S//(-45/+45/06)S were designed based on the classical laminated plate theory, where the

symbol ‘//’ denotes the position of the artificial pre-crack introduced during the fabrication process.

The 0°/5° interface was selected to alleviate the degree of fiber bridging, which exhibits very

10
similar mechanical properties with the unidirectional laminates. The 45°/-45° interface is very

commonly applied in practical engineering and hence studied here. The values of Dc for both kinds

of specimens are smaller than the upper limit value 0.25 [51] and values of Bt are also very low.

Thus the bending-twisting coupling is limited and obvious non-uniformity of SERR along the width

direction can be avoided. A 35mm-long and 25μm-thick Teflon film was inserted in the middle

plane of laminates during the lay-up process to achieve an artificial pre-crack. After the curing

process, the cured plates were cut by a diamond saw into specimens with specific geometry

dimensions of 180 mm-long, 25 mm-wide and 4.16 mm-thick. Prior to DCB tests, the cutted

specimens were inspected by the ultrasonically C-scanned technique to ensure defect-free

specimens being used. The edges of each specimen were coated with a thin layer of white

correction fluid in order to enhance visibility of the crack tip during the delamination growth

process. It is worthwhile to point out that the use of white correction fluid may has the undesired

effect that the delamination may propagate behind the thin white layer influencing the precise

measurement of the crack tip location.

All DCB tests were conducted according to the ASTM standard D5528-13 [52] and on a MTS

880 servo-hydraulic test machine. The displacement control mode was adopted at a low loading rate

of 0.1mm/min. During the test, the displacement and load data at the loading point were

automatically recorded by sensors with a pre-defined interval. An instrumented travelling

microscope (JCXE-DK) was used to monitor and locate the position of the crack tip, which allowed

a non-contact measurement of delamination length at the edge of the tested specimen with a

precision of 0.01 mm.

Three specimens were tested in DCB tests for each interface. The fracture toughness are

calculated by the modified beam theory as the following equation:

3PC C F
GC  (9)
2b  a    N '

where a, b, PC and C are the delamination length, the specimen width, the applied load and

11
displacement, respectively. F is a correction factor for considering a large displacement, N´ is a

correction factor for considering the load-block effect, which is one due to the quick-mounted hinge

used in this study. And  is a correction for crack tip displacement and rotation.

The experimental results for this study had already been reported in our previous studies [22].

The relations between fracture toughness GC versus crack growth length ∆a for both interfaces are

shown in Fig. 3(a), where significant R-curve behavior resulted by bridging fibers can be observed.

The GC gradually increased with the crack growing at the initial stage until arriving a constant value

after a certain distance. To quantitatively characterize the relations between the fracture toughness

GC and ∆a, an empirical model [22,27,53] was adopted here as follows:

  a   a 
2

G +2  Gprop  Gini    -  Gprop  Gini    ；   a  lcz

GC (a )   ini  lcz   lcz  (10)

Gprop ；a  lcz 

where ∆a is crack growth length. The lcz is defined as the length of the transient region where the

R-curve develops from an initial value to reach a steady state value. The value of lcz can be

experimentally determined by fitting the fracture toughness data via Eq. (10) with the best fitting

degree. It mathematically means that the slope of the quadratic equation should be zero at Δa=lcz,

where the steady-state condition is satisfied. The detailed values of Gini, Gprop and lcz for both

interfaces are listed in Table 1. All specimens exhibit the same value of Gini (100 J/m2), indicating

its independence on the ply orientation. However, the steady-state fracture toughness and the length

of fiber bridging zone of both interfaces are different between each other. The quadratic model fits

all GC data well with correlation coefficient r2 higher than 0.9, which indicates the high reliability of

the GC values. The load versus displacement curves of DCB specimens for two kinds of specimens

are presented in Fig. 3(b), where obvious difference can be observed for both interfaces. The

structural stiffness, the initial damage load and the ultimate load are higher in the specimen with

0°/5° interface than in the specimen with 45°/-45° interface. The curve of 0°/5° interface is

smoother after arriving at the ultimate load, while the 45°/-45° interface exhibited obvious stick-slip

12
behaviors. As presented in Fig. 4 showing the delamination paths [54], some delamination

migrations occur in the specimens with the 45°/-45° interface and result in the stick-slip behaviors,

meaning that delamination propagation partly happens at another interface than the original.

However, only delamination strictly along the interface is modeled in the numerical simulation

because it is usually deemed that the fiber bridging is the dominant factor which contributes to the

most energy absorption [54,55]. More accurate simulation on the matrix cracking and the

interactions between delamination and matrix cracking will be pursued in the next phase.

4 Implementation of CZM in FE model

In this section, the numerical procedure for the simulation of the delamination propagation using the

new three-linear CZM are described in the commercial finite element package ABAQUS ®, for

implicit finite element analysis. The FE model is shown in Fig. 5. The three dimensional finite

element mesh was prepared to simulate the DCB specimen with the 8-node solid brick element

(C3D8). Every ply was individually modeled using one element through-the-thickness in order to

consider the effect of fiber angle near the delamination plane. The 8-node cohesive elements

(COH3D8) with 10-μm-thickness were pre-arranged along the middle plane of the laminates from

the tip of the initial pre-crack to the end of the specimen. The DCB specimen was divided into three

sections along the length with different mesh refinements. A refined mesh with 0.2mm length was

used in the region where the crack was expected to propagate to ensure the independence of

predicted results on the mesh size. The other regions along the length had solid elements with 4 mm

length. There were eight elements through-the width of each arm.

To implement the proposed new CZM in the cohesive elements, user subroutines were developed

in the commercial software ABAQUS®. The upper and lower arms and interfaces were connected

by tie constraints, which can ensure better mesh adaptability. For the cohesive elements, initial

interfacial stiffness K1 of 1×1015 N/m3 and viscosity coefficient of 1×10-5 were adopted as suggested

in Ref. [22]. The FE analysis was conducted under displacement control. Therefore, the loading

points of the specimen were given a z-wise displacement, while the other end of the specimen was
13
fixed with rotation allowed.

The implementation of new CZM includes three basic modules: 1) inputs of material parameters,

material parameters will be transmitted to the user subroutine; 2) calculate the values of δ0, δb and δf,

then obtain the damage variable d based on Eqs. (5)(7)(8) and stiffness matrix, finally update the

stress matrix; 3) calculate the Jacobian matrix of the elements, update the Jacobian matrix and state

variables.

5 Results and discussion

The value of the interfacial strength is an important parameter in the new CZM. The suggested

values of σ0 in the literatures are usually in the range of 35~75MPa [22]. In addition, the study from

Ye and Chen [56] also illustrated that the σ0 is about 55–65% of the tensile strength of the matrix. In

this study, the tensile strength of the QY9511 is 100MPa. It may suggest that a suitable value of the

interfacial strength should be around 60MPa, which is also consistent with the conclusion in Ref.

[56]. Therefore, the value of σ0 is adopted as 60Mpa and a sensitivity analysis of its effect on

numerical results will be conducted in the following Section 5.2. In order to determine the σb, the

J-integral method is adopted here. The crack opening displacement (COD) at the initial pre-crack

should be recorded during the tests. Fig. 6 shows the relationship between the fracture toughness Gc

and the COD at the initial pre-crack tip δ*. A non-linear fitting relation between them can be

observed. The Gc dramatically increases with the δ* firstly until a slow increase trend exhibiting in

the last stage. An exponential fitting function [57] as Eq. (11) is used to fit the G-δ* data. This is

because that, as mentioned in Refs. [38,58,59], the bridging stress decreases monotonically from a

maximum at the crack tip to zero at the end of bridging zone, which is also the case for the studied

specimens here. Thus the exponential function is assumed to fit the G-δ* data in this study, which is

also recommended by Shokrieh et al. [57,60]. The value of r2 is higher than 0.96 for both interfaces.

* *
 
a b (11)
G(  ) =Ga (1  e
*
)  Gb (1  e )  Gtip

where Ga, Gb, δa and δb are fitting parameters. The corresponding bridging stress distribution

14
equation is:

* *
dG( * ) Ga   a Gb  b
 b ( ) 
*
 ( )e  ( )e (12)
d * a b

The bridging stress distribution can be calculated via Eq. (12). As shown in Fig. 7, it can be

found that the bridging strength increases with the interfacial fiber angle. The bridging strength of

specimens with 45°/-45° interface is 2.1MPa, which is higher than that of specimens with 0°/5°

interface (1.0MPa).

5.1 Numerical results from the new model

The numerical results using the traditional bilinear CZM are shown in Fig. 8 for both interfaces. It

can be observed that numerical load versus displacement curves are totally different with the

experimental ones, except for good agreements of the initial structural stiffness. The numerical ones

exhibit rapidly linear increasing followed by a gradually non-linear reduction. In addition, it can be

found that the ultimate load obtained by using the steady-state fracture toughness in the traditional

bilinear CZM is higher than that by using the initial fracture toughness. Above results give evidence

that the traditional bilinear CZM is not capable for simulating the propagated behaviors in the

multidirectional DCB specimens.

Comparisons between the numerical results obtained by the traditional three-linear CZM and the

experimental results are also made. Using the traditional three-linear CZM, σ0=50Mpa, σb=0.4Mpa

and σ0=55Mpa, σb=0.5Mpa are applied for the delamination simulation of the 0°/5° and 45°/-45°

interfaces, respectively. The obtained numerical results are shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen that the

traditional trilinear CZM is also capable of capturing the mode I delamination growth behavior. For

the 0°/5° interface, some differences exist between the numerical and experimental results after the

delamination onset. The value of σ0 is lower than the transverse tensile strength. The conclusions

are consistent with those from Ref. [17].

Fig. 10 shows the predicted load versus displacement curves by using the new proposed CZM. It

can be observed that the initial slopes of the numerical curves are in good agreements and keep
15
constant until the damage initiation denoted by the beginning of the degraded stiffness. The

simulated stiffness is gradually and smoothly decreased with the delamination growth. Good

consistent propagation phase with the experimental one can be easily observed in all figures. In

addition, the predicted ultimate loads of the two kinds of DCB specimens and their comparisons

with the experimental data are listed in Table 2, marked by bold text. The numerical errors are no

more than 10% showing the high accuracy of the ultimate load predictions. Overall, the predictions

by the new three-linear CZM show a good accordance with the experimental outcomes on the initial

stiffness and ultimate loads as well as the delamination propagation behavior. Therefore, it follows

that the new three-linear CZM proposed in Section 2.2 is efficient for accurately simulating the

delamination of DCB specimens with the effect of fiber bridging.

5.2 The effect of interfacial strength

Considering the realistic value of the interfacial strength are difficult to be obtained by experiments,

a sensitivity analysis of the interfacial strength on the numerical results is conducted in this study.

Four kinds of value (50MPa, 60MPa, 70MPa and 80MPa) are chosen for investigation. Fig. 11

presents the numerical load versus displacement curves originated from the new three-linear CZM

for the 0°/5° and 45°/-45° interfaces. Comparisons between predictions and the corresponding test

results are also shown in these figures. The detailed ultimate loads from the predictions and tests are

listed in Table 2. For both interfaces, it can be seen that similar predicted results can be obtained

when the interfacial strength is in the range of 50~80Mpa, which are all in good agreement with the

test results. Take a closer look at the values of ultimate load, it can be found that the interfacial

strength has little influence on the numerical results for 50Mpa≤σ0≤80Mpa. This is a helpful

conclusion for the application of the new CZM as it indicates more applicability of this CZM. It is

worth mentioning that in Ref. [61] an interesting sensitivity analysis is made on the all input

parameters of the used models, which is not the main topic here and should be the subject for

further researches.

Currently the ability of the presented cohesive law to represent the experimental data is only
16
compared with the standard bilinear model and the traditional three-linear model rather than other

state-of-the-art cohesive law shapes scoped for modelling fiber bridging effects, e.g. the exponential,

multi-linear. This is because the goal of this study is not to achieve to a cohesive law with a better

performance. The traditional trilinear CZM can give a closed relation for bridging stress versus n

and m. However, in the proposed new CZM, the bridging stress is required to be determined by tests,

which is a fundamental drawback. It may give very large bridging stress at the crack tip due to the

sensitivity of bridging law to the very small crack opening displacement [62]. In the future, it is

meaningful to determine the bridging stress by analytical methods with only basic experimental

load and displacement data required.

6 Conclusions

A physical-based three-linear cohesive zone model has been proposed to describe the effect of fiber

bridging of the mode I delamination in multidirectional composite laminates. This model reflects

the microcosmic mechanism of fiber bridging, and is implemented through the use-subroutine

UMAT in the commercial finite element software ABAQUS®. To provide experimental data for the

validation of the applicability of the proposed three-linear CZM, DCB tests on the multidirectional

composite laminates with two kinds of interface (0°/5° and 45°/-45°) are conducted. The bridging

strength is determined by the J-integral method. The simulations of the DCB tests are in good

agreement with the experiment results for both interfaces, with the relative errors between the

numerical and experimental results less than 10%, which illustrates the applicability of the new

CZM on predicting the delamination behavior in multidirectional laminates with large-scale fiber

bridging. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis of the interfacial strength on the modelling results is

carried out. It is shown that the interfacial strength has little effect on the simulated results, which

again illustrates the applicability of the proposed new CZM. Though this new model is applied to

the specific case of fiber reinforced composite laminates, it would be interesting to study its

applicability for other material systems.

17
Acknowledgements

The research work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project nos.

11902054, 11872131, 11772028, 11372020, 11572058 and U1864208), the Chongqing Natural

Science Foundation (Projects no. cstc2018jcyjAX0235, cstc2019jsyj-yzysbAX0015 and

cstc2019jscx-zdztzxX0028), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project

no. 2019CDXYHK0001) and the Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science for National Defence of

Aeronautical Digital Manufacturing Process of Shenyang Aerospace University (Project no.

SHSYS2018001).

Declaration of interests

☑ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal

relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Figure Captions
Fig. 1. Sketch of the traditional three-linear CZM in literatures [17].

Fig. 2. (a) Sketch of the new three-linear CZM, (b) interfacial damage and (c) peeled-off bridging

fibers.

Fig. 3. Experimental results: (a) R-curves and (b) Typical load versus displacement curves.

Fig. 4. Delamination path pictures of tested specimens with (a) 0°/5° interface and (b) 45°/-45°

interface.

Fig. 5. The FE model of DCB tests.

Fig. 6. The relation between fracture toughness and crack opening displacement at the pre-crack tip.

Fig. 7. The bridging stress distribution in tested specimens.

Fig. 8. Numerical results from the traditional bilinear CZM model for the (a) 0°/5° interface and (b)

21
45°/-45° interface.

Fig. 9. Numerical results from the traditional three-linear CZM model for the (a) 0°/5° interface and

(b) 45°/-45° interface.

Fig. 10. Numerical results from the new CZM model for the (a) 0°/5° interface and (b) 45°/-45°

interface.

Fig. 11. Sensitivity analysis of the interfacial strength on the simulated results for the (a) 0°/5°

interface and (b) 45°/-45° interface.

22
 Fig. 1. Sketch of the traditional three-linear CZM in literatures [17].

Fig. 2. (a) Sketch of the new three-linear CZM, (b) interfacial damage and (c) peeled-off bridging

fibers.

23
 Fig. 3. Experimental results: (a) R-curves and (b) Typical load versus displacement curves.

Fig. 4. Delamination path pictures of tested specimens with (a) 0°/5° interface and (b) 45°/-45°

interface.

24
 Fig. 5. The FE model of DCB tests.

Fig. 6. The relation between fracture toughness and crack opening displacement at the pre-crack tip.

25
 Fig. 7. The bridging stress distribution in tested specimens.

Fig. 8. Numerical results from the traditional bilinear CZM model for the (a) 0°/5° interface and (b)

45°/-45° interface.

26
Fig. 9. Numerical results from the traditional three-linear CZM model for the (a) 0°/5° interface and

(b) 45°/-45° interface.

Fig. 10. Numerical results from the new CZM model for the (a) 0°/5° interface and (b) 45°/-45°

interface.

27
Fig. 11. Sensitivity analysis of the interfacial strength on the simulated results for the (a) 0°/5°

interface and (b) 45°/-45° interface.

28
Table Captions

Table 1 Detailed values of the fracture toughness, the length of fiber bridging zone and other input

parameters in FE models.

Table 2 Ultimate loads for both interfaces under different values of the interfacial strength.

Table 1 Detailed values of the fracture toughness, the length of fiber bridging zone and other input

parameters in FE models.

Gini Gprop lcz K1 σ0 σb

Ply sequence Interface μ
(J/m2) (J/m2) (mm) (N/m3) (MPa) (MPa)
016//(+5/-5/06)S 0°/5° 825 50 1.0
100 1×1015 1×10-5 60
(+45/-45/06)S//(-45/+45/06)S 45°/-45° 890 26 2.1

Table 2 Ultimate loads for both interfaces under different values of the interfacial strength.

Interface σb (MPa) 50 60* 70 80

Experimental ultimate loads (N) 104.2(S.D.=2.6)
0°/5° Numerical ultimate loads (N) 100.4 105.9 102.9 104.9
Relative errors (%) -3.6 1.6 -1.2 0.7
Experimental ultimate loads (N) 91.3 (S.D.=0.4)
45°/-45° Numerical ultimate loads (N) 83.6 82.7 84.7 85.8
Relative errors (%) -8.4 -9.4 -7.2 -6.0
Note: S.D. is the standard deviation.

Yu Gong: Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review

& Editing.

Yixin Hou: Methodology, Software, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft.

Libin Zhao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original

Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision, Project Administration.

Wangchang Li: Investigation, Resources.

Jianyu Zhang: Validation, Data Curation, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing,

Project Administration.

29
Ning Hu: Resources, Writing – Review & Editing.

30
Graphical abstract

31