Transverse cracking of cross-ply laminates .1. Analysis

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the transverse cracking of cross-ply laminates, subjected to uniaxial tensile loading. For quasi-static tests, most cracks, initiated in the 90 degrees plies, instantaneously cross the entire test specimen width from edge to edge. In this case, the investigation of transverse cracking is reduced to a two-dimensional analysis. A finite element analysis has been implemented and the paper compares the results obtained by finite element analysis and analytical models. These comparisons show that a complete parabolic shear-lag analysis yields a fairly good approximation of the strain and stress distributions obtained by finite element analysis. The results deduced from this analytical model and from finite element analysis, for the longitudinal stiffness reduction as a function of the crack density, are in good agreement with the experimental results obtained for various cross-ply laminates. The complete parabolic shear-lag analysis is then used to develop a statistical damage accumulation process. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd