Effect of thermoplastic particles on the mechanical performance and damage failure of notched fibre metal laminates

Abstract

This study aims to explore the open-hole tension of fibre metal laminates containing thermoplastic particles experimentally and theoretically. In this regard, a vacuum bagging infusion process has been used to manufacture glass and glass metal laminates. Further, the tensile strength and damage failure modes were predicted using the Abaqus software, finite element analysis (FEA). This prediction was performed under a tensile test for notched composite laminates. The results of experimental tests indicated that the notch sensitivity is very important in terms of fracture and failures of composites. Furthermore, the findings show that the fibre metal laminates are less notch sensitive than glass composite laminates because of enhancing the composite ductility. In total, 28% of tensile strength decrease has been achieved after having holes for glass composites while the reductions were only 22%, 15% and 13% for glass composite laminates that have one, two and three aluminium layers, respectively. This reduction also becomes 4% for glass composite laminates that have one aluminium layer and thermoplastic particles and they exhibit typical ductile damage failures compared to other laminates. Further, the findings of numerical simulation for tensile strength and damage failure modes follow experimental results both qualitatively and quantitatively for notched composite laminates under tension loading.