Experimental and theoretical predictions of first-ply failure strength of laminated composite plate

Experimental and theoretical methods are presented to study the _rst!ply failure strength of laminated composite plates under di}erent loading conditions[ An acoustic emission technique is used to measure the energy released in the plates during the failure process[ The _rst!ply failure strength of the plates is then identi_ed via the energy vs load diagrams which are constructed on the basis of the measured acoustic emissions[ A _nite element analysis\ which is constructed on the basis of the layerwise linear displacement theory\ and the Tsai Wu failure criterion are used to predict the _rst!ply failure strength of the plates[ The comparison between the experimental and theoretical results shows good agreemen