Analysis of fiber reinforced polymer composite material using experimental and CLT approach

In recent years advanced polymer material composites are used to manufacture a fishing boat in glass fiber with polyester resin. This paper presents a modified laminate structure from existing laminate structure and to produce the boat of 650 Kg in the fiber-reinforced polymer. The analytical expression for calculation of stiffness and stress for both laminate plates were derived. The failure analyses were carried out for both the laminate plate by using maximum stress criteria to avoid failure during real time application of laminate structure. The fiber materials, which are used to prepare a laminates, are chopped strand mat (CSM) glass fiber (random orientation), woven roving mat (WRM) glass fiber (Cross ply orientation of 0° & 90°) and unidirectional glass fiber (UDF) with polyester resin. The existing composite plate and modified composite plate were prepared by 16% and 23% of fiber volume fraction respectively. The manufacturing method was used to produce a laminate plates is by hand lay-up process. The laminates were prepared by different stacking sequence and thickness to produce a symmetric and non-symmetric laminates. The laminate structures are [5 CSM, 1 WRM] and [4 CSM, 1UDF]. The specimens were cut as per ASTM and BS standards from the both laminates and tested in Instron Universal Testing Machine. The mechanical properties such as Tensile, Flexure and Interlaminar shear of composite were tested and compared. It was found that a modified symmetric laminate is a suitable laminate for the manufacture of fishing boat.