EFFECTS OF ELEMENT TYPES FOR CRACK TIPS IN WOVEN DCB MADE OF GLASS FIBRE-EPOXY RESIN

Nowadays, textile and woven fabric composites are taken into consideration for applications in high mechanical properties and every in-plane direction. However, developments in modelling and characterisation of the fabric reinforced composite materials are considered more in the effects of element types used in the mesh generation of the crack tip. The type of element selected for the crack tip, a critical point for evaluation of crack growth in a double cantilever beam (DCB) sample, is extremely important. In this study, results of strain energy release rate (SERR) meshed with singular and or brick elements with the experimental data were compared to select better element type. The plotted results of the crack tips meshed with the brick elements and the diagrams revealing the SERR in contrast to the crack length was evaluated. In addition, the aforementioned operation has been repeated for singular elements. The theory of the failure mechanics has been used to calculate the amounts of SERR for several crack lengths. It is concluded that, numerical results from SERR of the crack tip when meshed with singular elements were closer to the experimental results compared with data of SERR when meshed with brick elements.