DOI: 10.36347/sjet

Pages: 13-26

The fracture properties like fracture toughness and nominal strength of glass fiber reinforced epoxy laminates are very important especially when using cohesive zone model. Compact tension specimen test for [0, 90]2sand center cracked specimen tension test for Quasi-isotropic laminates [0/45/90]2s and [0/45/90/-45]sare carried out. The open hole tension test is performed on a matrix of specimen of various diameters (2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 mm) keeping the hole diameter to width (d/w) equal 1/6. The fracture toughness of cross ply laminates is measured as 51.98 Kj/m2whereas, for Quasiisotropic laminates [0/45/90] 2s and [0/45/90/-45]s are 32.98 and 31.5 KJ/m2 respectively. A strength reduction of 32 % is observed with increasing the hole diameter from 2 mm to 10 mm, while this percentage was decreasing by inserting an angle ply as 26 % for [0/45/90]2sand 14 % for [0/45/90/-45]s. Delamination are observed with thickness increasing for un-notched specimens. Fiber orientation affects deeply the laminates carrying capacity