Investigation of translaminar fracture in fibrereinforced composite laminates---applicability of linear elastic fracture mechanics and cohesive-zone model

With the extensive application of fiber-reinforced composite laminates in industry, research on the fracture mechanisms of this type of materials have drawn more and more attentions. A variety of fracture theories and models have been developed. Among them, the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) and cohesive-zone model (CZM) are two widely-accepted fracture models, which have already shown applicability in the fracture analysis of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. However, there remain challenges which prevent further applications of the two fracture models, such as the experimental measurement of fracture resistance.;This dissertation primarily focused on the study of the applicability of LEFM and CZM for the fracture analysis of translaminar fracture in fibre-reinforced composite laminates. The research for each fracture model consisted of two sections: the analytical characterization of crack-tip fields and the experimental measurement of fracture resistance parameters.;In the study of LEFM, an experimental investigation based on full-field crack-tip displacement measurements was carried out as a way to characterize the subcritical and steady-state crack advances in translaminar fracture of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. Here, the fiber-reinforced composite laminates were approximated as anisotropic solids. The experimental investigation relied on the LEFM theory with a modification with respect to the material anisotropy. Firstly, the full-field crack-tip displacement fields were measured by Digital Image Correlation (DIC). Then two methods, separately based on the stress intensity approach and the energy approach, were developed to measure the crack-tip field parameters from crack-tip displacement fields. The studied crack-tip field parameters included the stress intensity factor, energy release rate and effective crack length. Moreover, the crack-growth resistance curves (R-curves) were constructed with the measured crack-tip field parameters. In addition, an error analysis was carried out with an emphasis on the influence of out-of-plane rotation of specimen.;In the study of CZM, two analytical inverse methods, namely the field projection method (FPM) and the separable nonlinear least-squares method, were developed for the extraction of cohesive fracture properties from crack-tip full-field displacements. Firstly, analytical characterizations of the elastic fields around a crack-tip cohesive zone and the cohesive variables within the cohesive zone were derived in terms of an eigenfunction expansion. Then both of the inverse methods were developed based on the analytical characterization. With the analytical inverse methods, the cohesive-zone law (CZL), cohesive-zone size and position can be inversely computed from the cohesive-crack-tip displacement fields. In the study, comprehensive numerical tests were carried out to investigate the applicability and robustness of two inverse methods. From the numerical tests, it was found that the field projection method was very sensitive to noise and thus had limited applicability in practice. On the other hand, the separable nonlinear least-squares method was found to be more noise-resistant and less ill-conditioned. Subsequently, the applicability of separable nonlinear least-squares method was validated with the same translaminar fracture experiment for the study of LEFM.;Eventually, it was found that the experimental measurements of R-curves and CZL showed a great agreement, in both of the fracture energy and the predicted load carrying capability. It thus demonstrated the validity of present research for the translaminar fracture of fiber-reinforced composite laminates.