Notched behaviour of discontinuous carbon fibre composites: Comparison with quasi-isotropic non-crimp fabric

Notched behaviour of discontinuous carbon fibre composites has been compared with the response of non-crimp quasi-isotropic fabric. Tensile testing has been performed for un-notched and notched specimens with different hole sizes. Two studies have been conducted using constant width specimens and specimens of a constant hole-to-width ratio, employing Digital Image Correlation to produce full-field stain measurements. Results indicate that the discontinuous material is notch insensitive, with failures often occurring in the gross-section away from the notch. Analytical stress-based failure criteria have been applied to predict the notched strength. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.