Simulation of delamination can be approached in different ways. Although the jury is still out, I think people are finding tiebreak contact to be less problematic than cohesive elements. Here's a link to a draft document on modeling delamination in LS-DYNA... http://www.lstc.com/aeroqa/DATA/Guidelines%20for%20Modeling%20Delamination.doc First of all, for modeling delamination, you'd need to model each ply with a layer of elements. One approach would be to model a layer of shell or solid elements for each composite layer and bond the layers with a tiebreak contact, e.g., *contact_automatic_one_way_surface_to_surface_tiebreak with OPTION 6,7, or 9 (solids) or OPTION 8,10, or 11 (shells). Refer to *mat_138 for a detailed description of the behavior of tiebreak OPTIONs 9 and 11. The input variables in *contact_automatic_..._tiebreak OPTION 9/11 correspond to the input variables in *mat_138 as follows: *CONTACT *MAT_138 Comments NFLS T peak traction in stress units SFLS S peak traction in stress units PARAM XMU Pos = Power law; Neg = B-K law ERATEN GIC Area under traction vs. displ curve; units of stress * length ERATES GIIC Area under traction vs. displ curve; units of stress * length CT2CN ET/EN Thus CT = CT2CN*CN just as ET = ET/EN * EN CN EN Units of stress/displ. CN, if given, overrides default contact stiffness n/a UND,UTD Ultimate displacements not required; (calc from stiffness, peak traction, and energy release rate) This correspondence and units are demonstrated by http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/small_mod_i.cohes138_vs_dycos_tiebreak.k For an example application of OPTION=9, see "Simulation of Ballistic Impact on Composite Panels", available by searching on "dycoss" at www.dynalook.com. For *CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_ONE_WAY_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE_TIEBREAK: Prior to R5.58769, the visualization of delamination via "contact gap" (intfor database) only showed a tied/released flag (1.0 if tied and/or partially damaged and a value 0.0 if that tie is broken) and it only worked for options 8, 10, and 11 (contact between shells). Starting with R5.58769, a damage value ranging from 0 (tied, no damage) to 1 (released, full damage) is shown in SMP and it is now working for options 6, 7, and 9 (contact between solids), too. Rev. 63758 added this capability for MPP as well. Please find attached two test cases: http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/dcb_solids.dyn http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/dcb_shells.dyn Above paragraph is more concisely stated as: For OPTIONs 6 thru 11 of *CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_ONE_WAY_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE_TIEBREAK, you can fringe the failed tiebreak surface via the component labeled "contact gap" in the intfor database (*database_binary_intfor). The "contact gap" actually represents a damage value ranging from 0 (tied, no damage) to 1 (released, full damage) Here are two test cases: http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/dcb_solids.dyn http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/dcb_shells.dyn To set the intfor database, include "s=fname" on the execution line and set the contact print flag on Card 1 of the *contact_..._tiebreak. An ASCII file for Dycoss automatic tiebreak contact OPTIONs 9 and 11 is written by 971 R4.2 SMP by adding the command *DATABASE_ATDOUT (automatic tiebreak damage). LS-PrePost can read and plot the time history data in atdout. This was added for options 7 and 10 on 1/13/2011. _____________ Begin description of atdout __________________________________ The atdout file reports time histories of total delaminated area and energies for each tiebreak contact followed by slave node data (damage, mode_mixity and stresses). _i or I refers to mode I (normal) separation of the interface _ii or II refers to mode II (tangential) separation of the interface if_id = interface ID area_delam = delaminated area The next 3 values are energies associated with delamination. These energies are zero prior to delamination. Gtot_delam = total energy dissipated by delamination = GI_delam + GII_delam GI_delam = energy dissipated by mode I delamination GII_delam = enegy dissipated by mode II delamination Delamination is occurs when "damage" reaches 1.0. Damage begins to accumulate when the damage initiation displacement (function of failure stresses input by the user) is reached. As damage accumulates, the bond softens and stresses are relieved. damage = value between 0 (no damage) and 1 (delaminated) mode_mix = mode mixity = deltaII / deltaI where deltaII is separation in the tangential direction and deltaI is separation in the normal direction sigma_i = stress in normal direction sigma_ii = stress in tangential direction Refer to *mat_138 for details. _____________ End description of atdout __________________________________ See readme.intfor for information on visualizing locaton of delamination for certain automatic contact OPTIONs. I recommend setting IGNORE=1 when using an automatic tiebreak. Also, make sure segment/shell normals are oriented soas to point toward the opposing surface (for proper assessment of failure). Also, since stress is evaluated based on tributary area of each slave node, it is suggested that a segment set be used to define the slave side (as opposed to a part ID) so that only the segments in that segment set are considered in the evaluation of the tributary area. As an alternative to tiebreak contact, 8-noded cohesive elements (modeled with a cohesive material model, e.g., mat_138) can be used to model the interlaminar bond between composite plys. See the attached file "cohesive" for details. Similar examples illustraing Mode I type bond failure are: http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/mat_186_dcb.k (uses cohesive elements) http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/dcb_tiebreak.k (uses automatic tiebreak OPTIONs 9 and 11) Or, for direct comparision of cohesive elements to Dycoss tiebreak contact, see the secforc data created by http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/compare_cohesive_to_tiebreak_from_tobias.k Moreover, delamination is dependent on sig-zz and thus our common shell elements aren't well suited to prediction of delamination (sig-zz is zero in plane stress shell formulations). In v. 971, the exceptions are shell formulations with thickness stretch (25,26,27). These new 'thickness-stretch' shell formulations are still somewhat experimental and their application in successfully predicting delamination is, as far as I know, unproven. For more, see http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/shell_25_26.doc from Thomas Borrvall. For a more in-depth document (with validation results), see http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/E0459.doc General notes on shells with thickness stretch: In v. 971, shell formulations with 'thickness stretch' are 25 (Belytschtko-Tsay, underintegrated), 26 (fully integrated), and 27 (triangular). These formulations calculate a 3D stress state and use extra 'scalar' nodes to store 2 additional DOF for the linear variation of strain through the thickness (see Remark 7 under *section_shell and *element_shell_DOF, and *node_scalar in the 971 Users Manual). Actually, the code will automatically create the extra scalar nodes if Card 2 of *element_shell_DOF is left blank. IDOF in *section_shell must be set to 2 if triangular thickness stretch elements are present. If ESORT is set to 1 in *control_shell, triangles assigned formulation 25 or 26 by the user will automatically be assigned formulation 27 by LS-DYNA (bug reported to Borrvall, 10/16/06). For an example wherein shell formulations 25 and 26 are crushed in the thickness direction, see http://ftp.lstc.com/anonymous/outgoing/jday/squeeze_thickness_stretch_shells.k Material models especially suited to composite delamination when used with solid elements are mats 22, 59, 132, and 161/162. Mat 161/162 requires a supplemental license fee paid to the third party developer.