Transverse Fracture Behavior of Pultruded GFRP Materials in Tension: Effect of Fiber Layup
Publication: Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 24, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper presents an experimental study about the transverse tensile fracture properties of several off-the-shelf pultruded glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) materials, with different fiber layups and geometries and significant variations of elastic and strength properties. Determining these fracture properties should enable more-accurate advanced numerical simulation of the failure behavior of pultruded GFRP materials and members used in civil engineering applications, namely in the analysis of structural connections or members subjected to concentrated loads (web-crippling phenomenon). For the different GFRP materials, based on compact tension (CT) and wide compact tension (WCT) tests, both the critical energy release rate (Gc) and the cohesive law were determined at the laminate level, applying the following four data reduction methods: standardized analytical expressions, J-integral, Compliance Calibration (CC), and Modified Compliance Calibration (MCC). The CT tests were unsuccessful in reaching a stable propagation stage and provided overestimations of Gc. Conversely, the WCT tests were able to achieve a stable propagation stage and thus provided more-consistent estimates of Gc and cohesive laws. Among the various data reduction methods, a good agreement was found between visually based methods. On the contrary, the MCC method was found to provide significantly lower estimates of Gc when compared with the remainder. Different reasons for this variation are identified and discussed. The sample of GFRP materials presented a significant variation of Gc, which was found to be highly dependent on the fiber architecture: (i) for the material with weaker transverse reinforcement layers, consisting only of continuous filament mats, Gc ranged between 6.6 and 10.7 N/mm; (ii) materials presenting cross-ply layers presented intermediate Gc values, ranging from 13.1 and 21.3 N/mm; and (iii) materials comprising quasi-isotropic layups presented the highest overall Gc estimates, ranging from 19.3 N/mm (similar to cross-ply materials) to above 150 N/mm.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge FCT (project PTDC/ECM/113041/2014) and CERIS for the financial support. The first author is also grateful to FCT for funding his research through scholarship SFRH/BD/109957/2015. The third author acknowledges the support of FCT, through IDMEC, under LAETA, project UIDB/50022/2020.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- a
- notch length, measured from the center of the loading hole;
- a0
- initial notch length, measured from the center of the loading hole;
- CMOD
- crack mouth opening displacement;
- CTOD
- crack tip opening displacement;
- du
- applied displacement at ultimate load;
- d1
- fitting parameter;
- d2
- fitting parameter;
- E11
- longitudinal tensile elastic modulus;
- E22
- transverse tensile elastic modulus;
- F
- applied load;
- G
- energy release rate;
- Gc
- critical energy release rate;
- G12
- shear elastic modulus;
- J1
- fitting parameter;
- J2
- fitting parameter;
- w
- specimen width, measured from the center of the loading hole;
- Δa
- crack propagation length;
- σcoh
- cohesive stress, measured from the WCT tests;
- σu11
- ultimate longitudinal tensile stress;
- σu22
- ultimate transverse tensile stress; and
- τu12
- ultimate shear stress.
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Published In
Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 24 • Issue 4 • August 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 20, 2019
Accepted: Nov 27, 2019
Published online: Apr 20, 2020
Published in print: Aug 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Sep 21, 2020
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