Damage Control in Composite Laminates

Abstract

Several effects that fiber prestress may have on stress redistribution in the plies of composite laminates and in the phases of individual plies are illustrated. These include improvement of composite damage resistance under tensile mechanical loads, reduction/cancelation of interlaminar stresses at free edges of composite laminate subjected to thermomechanical loading, and stress relaxation in the matrix phase of viscoelastic composite laminates. Specific results are found for quasi-isotropic and cross-ply symmetric S-glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy AS4/EPON 828 laminates.