Abstract
Carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics (CFRTP) are suitable as structural material for automobiles due to their high specific rigidity and strength. However, these materials have random fiber orientations and volume fractions for each part, which makes it difficult to predict the material’s mechanical behavior. In this study, a new non-destructive inspection method called Talbot Lau interferometer was applied to CFRTP inspections and fiber orientations in a CFRTP plate were quantified, making a color map of fiber orientations. Tensile tests of CFRTP specimens and the color map intended that relatively weak specimens had break along the fiber orientation at their break point. Additionally, finite element models using quantified fiber orientations were generated and tensile test of FEM had been done. The result clearly showed the difference of elastic modulus in a specimen corresponding its fiber orientation. The comparison of FEM and digital image correlation showed that the specimen has a concentrated strain at its break point just before it broke although in FEM a part of specimen apart from the break point had the maximum strain.
