Engineering Commons^™

The Development Of A Progressive Failure Model Of A Fiber-Rein Forced Composite Lamina, Michael Maletta

Masters Theses

Void formation is a common problem in many composite material manufacturing processes. Composites fail when micro-cracks, which usually originate at voids, propagate through the material. The mechanical properties of a lamina depend not only on the constituent properties, but also on the tow packing configuration, void content and void distribution. This paper develops a method to determine the mechanical properties of a tow and lamina and develops a progressive failure model to predict the strength of a lamina with varying void content, void distribution and tow packing configuration, using finite element analysis.

The strength a lamina with various tow packing …