Effect of Notch Diameter and Fiber Orientation on Tensile Strength of Glass/EpoxyLaminated Composites

Abstract

The use of fiber-reinforced composite materials has grown rapidly in recent years because of their high specific strength and stiffness, particularly in the aerospace, aviation, automotive, and civil-engineering industries. Their nonhomogeneous and strongly anisotropic response combined with the presence of notch plays a very important role. The ‘‘hole size effect’’, a main factor, decreases the laminate strength with increasing hole diameter for a constant stress concentration across the width of a specimen. In addition to this variation in strength, three different failure mechanisms can be observed: fiber failure with and without extensive matrix damage, and complete gauge section delamination. In this paper, it is intended to experimentally assess the mechanical behavior of laminated composites with glass fiber system subjected to uniaxial tensile load in the presence of central circular notches of two different diameters.