Effect of the Environmental Conditions on the Ultimate Load of Damaged Unidirectional of Natural Fiber/Epoxy Composite

Abstract

The present paper proposes a strength reliability model for unidirectional composites with natural fibers in a hexagonal array. The model assumes that, a central core of broken fibers flanked by unbroken fibers which are subject to stress concentrations from the broken natural fibers. The approach of the model consists of using a modified shear lag model to calculate the ineffective lengths and stress concentrations around fiber breaks. In this paper, we attempt to incorporate in the proposed model the unidirectional composite property variation with temperature and moisture in order to predict even composite strength degradation. Strength degradation is often seen as a result of changes in ineffective lengths at natural fiber breaks and the corresponding stress concentrations in intact neighboring fibers.KeywordsUnidirectional compositefractured fibersstress concentrationstemperaturemoistureunidirectional displacement