Modelling the influence of the orientation and fibre reinforcement on the Negative Poisson's ratio in composite laminates

The variation of through‐thickness Poisson's ratio with fibre type and orientation has been investigated using a specially developed Fortran program. Glass fibre/epoxy resin composites were always found to be conventional, but negative Poisson's ratio values of up to ν13 = –0.746 were produced over certain orientation angles for Kevlar and carbon reinforcements. This underlines the need for anisotropic pre‐preg material. A range of [±β /±θ ]s angles were investigated for carbon fibre laminates and it was found that auxetic behaviour could be generated for β up to 45°. All the findings of this work have extended the range of laminates which can be engineered to be auxetic either by material (i.e. Kevlar as well as carbon) or by orientation (i.e. by introducing further β layers other than the 0° and 90° previously investigated). (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)