Carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites are widely used in aerospace, automotive and construction structures thanks to their high specific strength and stiffness. They can also be used in various products in sports industry. Such products can be exposed to different in-service conditions such as large bending deformation and multiple impacts. In contrast to more traditional homogeneous structural materials like metals and alloys, composites demonstrate multiple modes of damage and fracture due to their heterogeneity and microstructure. Damage
Citation: ULLAH, H., HARLAND, A.R. and SILBERSCHMIDT, V.V., 2015.Dynamic bending behaviour of woven composites for sports products: experiments and damage analysis. Materials and Design, 88, Additional Information:• This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Materi- CFRP laminates of various orientations were tested at loads increasing up to failure to determine their energyabsorbing capability. On-axis laminates demonstrated better strength and stiffness whereas off-axis laminates exhibited good energy-absorbing capability. However, for applications demanding strength, stiffness and energy absorption as in sports products, a combination of both types of plies, as in a quasi-isotropic layup, is an optimum choice. Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) analysis of the tested specimens showed that matrix cracking, delamination and tow debonding were the dominant damage modes at the specimen's impact location, whereas fabric fracture occurred at the bending location. Further, a catastrophic brittle fracture was observed in the on-axis laminates whereas the off-axis laminates exhibited pseudo-ductile behaviour thanks to matrix cracking and fibre trellising before their failure at higher energies.
Additional Information:• NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Composites Part B: Engineering. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document.Changes In this paper, flexural loading of woven carbon fabric-reinforced polymer laminates is studied using a combination of experimental material characterisation, microscopic damage analysis and numerical simulations. Mechanical behaviour of these materials was quantified by carrying out tensile and largedeflection bending tests. A substantial difference was found between the materials' tensile and flexural properties due to a size effect and stress stiffening of thin laminates. A digital image-correlation technique capable of full-field strain-measurement was used to determine in-plane shear properties of the studied materials. Optical microscopy and micro-computed tomography were employed to investigate deformation and damage mechanisms in the specimens fractured in bending. Various damage modes such as matrix cracking, delaminations, tow debonding and fibre fracture were observed in these microstructural studies. A two-dimensional finite-element (FE) model was developed to analyse the onset and propagation of inter-ply delamination and intra-ply fabric fracture as well as their coupling in the fractured specimen. The developed FE model provided a correct prediction of the material's flexural response and successfully simulated the sequence and interaction of damage modes observed experimentally.
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