Identifying through-thickness material properties of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics using the virtual fields method combined with moiré interferometry

Abstract

An investigation into the use of a novel curved-beam composite specimen is conducted to measure the interlaminar (through-thickness) tensile properties of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic. A combination of a numerical model and full-field displacement/strain measurement with moiré interferometry is utilized in this study. Through-thickness material properties are identified from the measured displacement distribution using the virtual fields method. Because of the shape and the loading condition of the proposed curved composite beam, both tensile and shear stresses exist in the through-the-thickness direction. Therefore, the interlaminar tensile modulus, as well as the interlaminar shear modulus, can be evaluated. The measurement results by moiré interferometry provide the material properties through inverse analysis.

Keywords:

• inverse problem
• material properties
• carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP)
• moiré interferometry
• virtual fields method

Acknowledgment

This work was performed when the first author stayed at the University of Florida as a visiting researcher in 2013.