Effect of delamination on the bending response of composite materials

This work investigates the effect of delamination on the failure progress and strength of composite materials beamsunder bending loading. Experimental 3-point bending tests in accordance with ASTM D 790-03 standard wereconducted and a Finite Element model was developed in order to assess the aforementioned effect. The key parametersexamined were delamination length (80 mm, 140 mm and 200 mm) and its position in the thickness direction of thebeam (at 0.25t, 0.50t and 0.75t from the tension side). For each case, the experimental and numerical force-deflectionand strain-deflection curves were analysed in order to draw conclusions.