Mechanical properties comparison of four models, failure theories study and estimation of thermal expansion coefficients for artificial e-glass polyester composite

Abstract EN

In this paper, the mechanical properties of artificial E-glass reinforced polyester composite were evaluated; the elastic properties and the strength of the composite were measured experimentally by tensile tests and then compared with the predicted values by theoretical four micromechanical constitutive models.

The strength of the composite lamina and laminates were also determined experimentally and compared with five widely used theoretical failure theories.

The lamination theory was also used to determine the strength of laminates by applying Hill- Tsai failure criterion.

The theoretical models showed that the composite stiffness increases with increasing the fibre volume fraction and the volume fraction which gave the best fit to the experimental results of elastic modulus (E1) corresponds to volume fraction (Vf) equal 0.37.

The stiffness of a unidirectional lamina depends on the fiber orientation relative to the off-axis load direction, and it drops sharply as the fiber alignment angle increases.

In addition, the prediction of thermal expansion coefficients of composite is carried out in the present analysis, whereas the values of the coefficient that estimated to be based on the mechanical properties of the certain composite theoretically and experimentally.