Influence of hybridization and fibre architecture on the translaminar fracture toughness of woven composite laminates

The present work investigates the translaminar fracture toughness of glass fibre composite laminates experimentally and numerically by varying the glass fibre architectures and including micro-thermoplastic particles. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional glass woven fabrics and micro-high-density polyethylene particles have been used for composite laminates manufactured using a vacuum bagging technique. Experimentally, the translaminar fracture toughness values of composite laminates have been measured by using tensile strength tests and the specimen geometry and experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with ASTM E1922 with some modification, and three different cracked specimens have been selected. The tensile strength results and the corresponding damage mechanisms of the composite laminates were additionally estimated through finite element analysis (FEA) performed in Abaqus software. The findings show that the crack propagates perpendicular to the applied loading, and the 2D woven glass composite exhibited the highest peak loads compared to all composite samples in the first cracked samples. Meanwhile, the higher reduction of peak loads occurred in the second and third cracked specimens because of fibre fracture and delamination. The fibre fractures and delamination become less when the glass fibre architecture is changed to a 3D woven composite laminate and including thermoplastic particles. The numerical predictions of tensile strength and damage behaviour for the composite laminates showed both qualitative and quantitative agreement with the experimental observations.