ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the substantiation of the continuum theory applied to predict the fracture of a laminated composite material with a periodic structure undergoing large deformations in uniaxial compression. There are two different mechanical approaches to describe the deformation behavior of composites. One of them is based on the piecewise-homogeneous medium model, where the behavior of each material component is described by the equations of three-dimensional solid mechanics, provided certain kinematic boundary conditions are satisfied at the interfaces. The other approach, or the continuum theory, involves many significant simplifications. With the continuum theory, a composite is modeled as a homogeneous anisotropic material with effective elastic constants, by means of which the physical properties of the original material and the shape and volume fraction of the constituents are taken into account.
