Fracture toughness of woven glass and carbon reinforced hybrid and non-hybrid composite plates

The fracture toughness and strength of materials are adversely affected by the cracks in the materials, which can be induced during manufacturing, assembly, and usage. In this study, the effect of crack length and crack location on the fracture toughness of woven glass and carbon reinforced hybrid and non-hybrid composite plates were investigated experimentally and numerically. For this purpose, glass/epoxy (G(8)), and carbon/epoxy (C-8) non-hybrid composite plates and glass-carbon/epoxy (G(2)C(4)G(2)), and carbon-glass/epoxy (C(2)G(4)C(2)) hybrid composite plates were produced by using hand lay-up method. The fracture toughness of hybrid and non-hybrid composite plates having three different crack locations as single edge crack (SEC), center crack (CC), and double edge crack (DEC) with different crack lengths were obtained by determining failure loads under tensile loading. The ANSYS finite element package program was used in order to determine the fracture toughness of hybrid and non-hybrid composites by means of J-Integral methods. The results showed that the highest and the lowest fracture toughness values were obtained in the specimens with SEC and CC, respectively. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:783-793, 2018. (c) 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers