Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of the fiber discontinuity, caused by the prepreg cut in fabricating laminated structures, on the mechanical properties in CFRP laminates. Stress-strain relations under tensile loadings are obtained for unidirectional laminates that contain the fiber discontinuity, and damages in the laminates have also been observed. Nonlinear stress-strain relations at the center of the laminates have been found to be due to the interfacial debonding at discontinuous edge. In addition, it has been revealed that strains at distant from the fiber discontinuity increase sharply because the interlaminar shear stress is released by the interlaminar delamination that grows from the discontinuity. Finite element (FE) analysis model has been developed in order to calculate the stress distribution in the plates. The FE results have shown that stress concentrates in the fiber discontinuous edge with thicker discontinuous layer. Furthermore, shear-lag analysis model has also been proposed, and it has been shown that obtained stress distributions agree well qualitatively with the FE results.
