Behaviour of hybrid glass fibre-reinforced polymer and timber composite laminates under shear loading: Importance of fibre rotation

This paper presents a study aimed at investigating the behaviour of hybrid glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP)timber (HFT) composite laminates under shear loading. A series of V-notched rail shear tests were carried out to determine the properties of HFT laminates, both in perpendicular and parallel to timber grain direction. In addition, shear tests were also conducted for pure timber and GFRP specimens. Except for pure timber specimens loaded parallel to grains, all specimens showed significant non-linear behaviour. During the testing, significant rotation of the glass fibres was observed. To further investigate the behaviour of the shear test specimens, a numerical model was developed. A numerical simulation approach that combines the progressive damage modelling of GFRP and timber with advanced fibre rotation modelling was developed. The simulation approach was implemented in finite element (FE) software program ABAQUS\Explicit via a vectorized user-defined material model (VUMAT). FE results showed a good agreement with the test results and confirmed the significant influence of fibre rotation on the post peak behaviour of the HFT specimens under shear loading.

Automated summary

This study investigates the behavior of hybrid glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) timber composite laminates under shear loading. Experimental tests and numerical simulations were conducted to determine the properties of the laminates and explore the influence of fiber rotation on their behavior.