High-Toughness CFRP Laminates With Engineered Fracture Surfaces: A Shark-Teeth Design

Abstract

Carefully-placed patterns of micro-cuts have been designed and then used to increase the translaminar work of fracture in thin-ply CFRP composite laminates. These patterns of micro-cuts are able to deviate a translaminar crack and force the formation of large bundle pull-outs. The technique led to a 68% increase in the laminate notched strength and a 460% increase in the laminate translaminar work of fracture when compared with the un-modied baseline material. Part of the improved performance was found to be due to the generated interaction of failure mechanisms between contiguous plies with dierent orientation; this process for generating interaction opens new possibilities for micro-structure design which will be explored in future works.