Investigation the Effect of Loading Rates on Fracture Toughness of Loading Mode I in Glass / Epoxy Composite Laminates by Acoustic Emission

Delamination or interlayer cracking is one of the most important imperfections in composite materials. The existence of this defect in a structure reduces the strength and, as a result, disables the structure. To analyze the effective factors in interlayer separation, it is necessary to analyze the effective loading parameters. In this paper, the effect of the change in loading rate on the failure mechanism in I failure mode was analyzed using an acoustic emission for unidirectional samples made of glass fiber/epoxy resin. At first composite, samples were made according to standard and placed at different rates of displacement under loading. Force data, displacement and crack growth rate for different loading rates were used to calculate the exact strain energy release rate. In addition to the extensometer, the Dino camera was used. In this paper, a high-reliability method was proposed to evaluate the separation between the layered composites using acoustic emission method. By comparing mechanical data and acoustic emission signals, the mechanical behavior obtained for each loading rate was determined so that the mechanical behavior of the composite material varied with the change in loading rate. The results show that, with increasing loading rates, the resin lost its elastic properties, and the specimen exhibited a more rigid behavior and is quite rigorous so that the fracture failure process is changed. The failure processes and crack growth rate was validated by use of acoustic emission signals. There was good agreement between the fracture toughness of accretion of acoustic emission signals with the experimental values.