Residual Stress Relaxation in CFRP Cross-ply Laminate

Abstract

We measured residual stress relaxation in epoxy-based CFRP laminates and cyanate-based CFRP laminates. We estimated the residual stress in symmetric cross-ply laminates by measuring the curvature of unsymmetric cross-ply laminates and investigated the relaxation of the residual stress by measuring the curvature of unbalanced laminates in a nitrogen environment. Our experimental results demonstrated that the residual stress in both kinds of laminate can decay by approximately 15% after 500 hours at 40°C. The stress relaxation can be modeled by the power law model. Viscoelastic parameters were obtained by a quasi-static tensile test to predict stress relaxation. The validity of the prediction is discussed.