EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE ON FIBER TENSION FRACTURE TOUGHNESS OF COMPOSITE LAMINATES AT HIGH LOADING RATE

The understanding of fracture toughness associated with fibre dominated tensile failure is of great important for safety design of composite structrures threatened by extreme loading conditions, such as high/cold temperature and high rate loading. The dynamic fracture toughness of composite laminates in fibre tension is characterized under different temperatures (e.g. -55 °C, 23 °C and 90 °C) with compact tension (CT) sample, at loading rate of 8 m/s using a tension Hopkinson bar intergrated with a experimental chamber. Digital image correlation (DIC) with high-speed imaging is employed for obtaining the full-field strain fields and crack tip location.
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