Study of failure in fibrous composites subjected to bending loads

Abstract

This study investigates the failure modes, failure strengths, and failure criteria of laminated composite plates with stress concentration and subjected to bending loading. Graphite/epoxy composites are used for the present study. Lamina material properties, such as stiffness and strength, of the composite are obtained by experiments. A series of bending tests are conducted for laminated, graphite/epoxy composite plates with and without a hole to investigate their failure modes and strengths. In addition, finite element analyses are performed to compute stress distributions around holes of the composite plates subjected to bending loading. Based on the stress computation, a couple of failure criteria are examined to predict the failure strengths of composite plates with stress concentration.