On the Damage Evolution and the Mechanical Degradation of GlassFibre NonCrimp Fabric Reinforced Epoxy Under Tensile Loading Experimental and Finite Element Modelling

The stiffness and damage evolution in a quasistatic tensile loaded noncrimp fabric reinforced epoxy was measured. To determine the effective stiffness of the damaged material numerically a finite element analysis was performed. The finite element analysis bases solely on the measured 45 and 90 crack densities and on ply properties calculated by the Rule of Mixtures. The measured and calculated effective tensile stiffness were compared and a fair agreement could be found.