Tensile fracture behaviour of notched boron/aluminum composite laminates

This paper presents modifications in the stress fracture criteria (known as the point stress criterion and the average stress criterion), developed by Whitney and Nuismer to predict the tensile strength of composite laminates containing holes and cracks. A simple relation is used for the characteris tic lengths to take care of the notch size dependence, which can improve th e accuracy while evaluating the notched strength of composite laminates. Th e applicability of the simple relation is examined by considering a good am ount of fracture data on boron/aluminium laminates. The present procedure c orrelates well with the test data on circular hole specimens as well as var ious cracked configurations and confirms that the approach can be applied f or tensile strength estimations of notched composite laminates.