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To make the next generation of lightweighting come through, engineers undertake increasingly deep simulation of composite performances during the part design phase. After having considered stiffness and failure predictions, they are now eager to tackle fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) durability, accounting simultaneously for FRP manufacturing process and nonlinear behavior. To address their interest, e-Xstream engineering has joined DURAFIP, a collaborative R&D project involving 14 academic and industrial French and Belgian partners. Among others, this project has given birth to dedicated material models combined to micromechanical and phenomenological fatigue criteria as well as to their interface with appropriate software describing complimentary aspects (manufacturing process and structural behavior). Hence, it paves the way for a nonlinear multi-scale modeling workflow accurately predicting structural part life. As outlined by this paper, this workflow will constitute an efficient composite life assessment solution, original with respect to previous extrapolations of metal fatigue approaches. Indeed it relies on direct nonlinear mechanical simulation, more representative for the actual nature of polymers.

We have applied this workflow to a beam demonstrator employed at Solvay and to a simplified beam model. First we have calibrated linear and nonlinear material models, such as the ones developed at Université Catholique de Louvain and e-Xstream engineering, from a limited amount of experimental data. Then we have coupled it to finite element analyses (FEA) of the beam, taking advantage of local fiber orientation predictions from …