Mechanical Properties and Damage Mechanism of Glass Fiber Composite Laminates in Compression

Application of composite laminates was very wide in aerospace engineering, civil engineering, wind energy, auto industry, etc. Low cost glass fiber textile was often applied into composite laminates by many composites companies. It is of import that investigation of mechanical properties and damage mechanism of this composites laminates. Two types of composite laminates were studied in this paper. One type of composite laminates was made of glass fiber biaxial cloth. The other was made of glass fiber composite felt. Each type composite laminates has different direction aligned. Many specimen were tested in compression with universal testing materials machine model INSTRON 5500R. Strength of composite laminates and stress-strain diagram was obtained in these experiments. Effect of fiber different orientation on compression strength of laminates was found. Shear stresses between two laminas were calculated. Fracture mechanism of composites laminates was analyzed by macro-method. Fractography of laminates was applied into analysis of mechanism. SEM photo was acquired and observed in detail. The result is that strength and failure mechanism of different types composite laminates varied with fiber orientation and different textiles.