Abstract
Notched fracture behavior of a thin-ply laminate made of spread tow plain-weave carbon fabrics has been studied with an emphasis on the effect of specimen size. For this purpose, static tension tests are performed on one-, two- and three-dimensional geometrically similar specimens with a center hole. The comparison of the results on 2D-geometrically similar specimens indicates that the tensile strength tends to slightly decrease as the width of specimen increases. Development and distribution of strain on the surface plies are monitored by means of digital image correlation to estimate the growth of damage indirectly. The DIC results suggest that the spread-tow thin-ply laminate has higher resistance to the growth of damage that is apt to develop from the edges of a hole. On the basis of these observations, a notch size effect law is also developed taking into account the scale effect in geometrically similar specimens.
