Delamination buckling; Experiment and analysis

Delamination buckling and growth are failure scenarios that lessen the structural integrity of laminated composite structural members. In the present work a combined experimental and analytical investigation of this failure mechanism in a strictly two-dimensional setting is carried out. When a delamination of an arbitrary planform is present in a structure, the buckling mode of the delamination may involve regions or points of contact with the undelaminated portion of the laminate beneath it. The effect of this physical constraint is investigated by compressing model specimens that contain delaminations of rectangular planform with varying aspect ratio. The shadow Moiré method is used to capture the buckled mode shapes while the results from an approximate analytical model developed elsewhere are used to corroborate the experimental results.