Development of Web-Based Software for the Failure Analysis of Composite Laminae

MECH-Gcomp was developed as web-based free software to aid in learning and to help researchers and industry professionals in failure analysis of composite materials. The software is already well-established for the study of micromechanics and has extended to other fields. This work focuses on one of its newest modules, related to the failure analysis of composite laminae, for which thirteen different failure criteria were implemented, along with an important tool for the construction of failure envelopes. The programming and characteristics of this module are presented and discussed. In addition, jute/polyester composites were manufactured and tested under different stress states to verify the software predictions. The root-mean-square error ranged from 0.096 to a maximum of 0.545, and most of the analyzed criteria yielded reasonable agreement compared to the experimental data. A significant variation in predictions among the criteria could be clearly observed, especially based on the produced failure envelopes for the different stress states.