Experimental investigation of high strain-rate behaviour of fabric composites

Experimental observations confirm strain-rate-dependant behaviour of woven fabric composites; however, there is no consistent data available on characterization and modelling of this behaviour. This paper presents experimental results on rate-dependant damage behaviour of woven composites and using the same test setup, compares fabric composites with three different fibre architectures (i.e. plain weave, 2 × 2 twill weaves and 8-harness satin weaves) and two different materials (i.e. carbon/epoxy and carbon/BMI). High strain-rate dynamic tests are performed using a tensile version of the Hopkinson bar setup. Total of 103 uniaxial tension and bias extension specimens are tested to study and compare strain-rate-dependant behaviour of these materials. Test setup and results are presented and discussed in this paper. In general, higher maximum stress and initial undamaged tension and shear modulus are observed in dynamic tests compared to quasi-static ones. It is also observed that the shear behaviour of woven composites is more rate-dependant than their tensile behaviour.