Abstract
Coupling between intralaminar and interlaminar damage plays a significant role in accurately predicting delamination and final failure. However, insufficient experimental data are available for models of this phenomenon. In this paper, we proposed a two-step experiment on cross-ply laminates to quantitatively study the influence of in-plane strain on the interlaminar fracture toughness. First, we performed a tensile test on the [0(2)/90(2)](s) cross-ply laminates to introduce various extents of intralaminar damage. Next, we bonded a backing adherend of [0(6)] plies to the cross-ply, so we could probe the delamination properties through a subsequent double cantilever beam (DCB) test. We identified the effective fracture toughness G(c,eff) by the compliance calibration method. We found that intralaminar damage promotes fiber bridging in the transverse direction, which finally influence the out-of-plane properties significantly.