Compressive strength of unidirectional composites: evaluation and comparison of prediction models

The analytical models to study the behaviour of unidirectional (UD) composi tes under compressive loading along the fibre direction are either based on microbuckling or kinking of fibres. In reality both of these mechanisms ar e together responsible for the failure with kinking following the microbuck ling of fibres. The present work evaluates and compares some of the existin g models proposed for predicting the compressive strength of UD composites along the fibre direction. It is an attempt to evaluate analytical models t hat can be used for the design purposes with a greater degree of confidence , and are easy to use and computationally simple. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.