Adiabatic heating and damage onset in a pultruded glass fiber reinforced composite under compressive loading at different strain rates.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijimpeng.2020.103728Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • The temperature rise is mainly due to the meso‑scale damage onset and cracking.

  • The dominating bulk failure for out-of-plane compression forms a V-shape crack path.

  • The damage onset at the strain rate of 103 s-1 appears after the peak load.

  • At the strain rate of 1 s-1, also fiber shattering as multiple radial cracks per fiber occurs in pultruded GFRP.

Abstract

Damage onset and adiabatic heating of a pultruded Glass Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) composite was investigated using compression tests at low, intermediate and high strain rates (10−3 s−1, 1 s−1 and 103 s−1). Optical and infrared (IR) cameras monitored the specimens during testing, so that the mechanical response, damage onset, and damage evolution were obtained along with the adiabatic heating of the specimen due to plastic deformation and fracture. The results revealed clear strain rate effects on stiffness, strain softening and damage initiation. The simultaneous optical and IR imaging allowed quantitative description of thermomechanical response of the material and studying the formation and propagation of shear localizations and their temperature history. The maximum temperatures in the fracture zones exceed 80 °C at the strain rate of 103 s−1. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was used to identify the micro-scale crack paths at different strain rates. The findings allow more exact numerical predictions and design of tubular GFRP pipes for impact applications.

Keywords

Glass fiber-reinforced polymer composites
Adiabatic heating
Strain-rate effects
Compression

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