An experimental investigation of the mechanical behavior and damage of thick laminated carbon/epoxy composite

In this study, mechanical behavior and damage of thick laminated carbon/epoxy composite are investigated through static and fatigue three-point bending tests. In order to supply a maximum of information about the mechanical behavior of these materials, which have been little studied in the literature, and to provide an accurate description of the different mechanisms involved during their damage process, three non-destructive evaluation and monitoring techniques were used in this study. The acoustic emission for damage assessment, identification, and their threshold detection, the infrared thermography for fatigue damage evaluation and fatigue limit estimation and the digital image correlation for strain and displacement fields measurements.