Compressive intralaminar fracture toughness and residual strength of 2D woven carbon fibre reinforced composites: New developments on using the size effect method

•We performed compressive intralaminar fracture toughness tests on 2D woven CFRP composites.•We compared two different specimen geometries to measure this fracture toughness.•We determined the intralaminar fracture toughness using the size effect method.•We numerically replicated the notch sensitivity experiments by using computational mechanics.•We measured the post-peak crushing stress of these specimens, to obtain the material’s residual strength. This paper presents new developments in the use of the size effect method for obtaining the compressive fracture toughness of 2D woven carbon fibre composites. A modification of the Double Edge Notch Compression (DENC) specimen geometry is proposed, to fit the Combined Loading Compression (CLC) standard fixture, and shown to reduce peak load dispersion. The notch tip diameter sensitivity on the peak load is also investigated, experimentally and numerically, and shown not to have a significant influence on fracture toughness. The use of the CLC fixture also allows for the residual compressive strength of the material to be calculated from post-peak crushing.