INTERLAMINAR FAILURE AND FRACTOGRAPHY OF COMPOSITE LAMINATES

The fractography of interlaminarly failed epoxy matrix composite laminates was observed with the aid of a scanning electron microscopy in this work.The mechanism resulted in the formation of cleavage steps is analysed while influential factors upon the size and shape of those steps are discussed.The corelation of microcrack propagation in the delamination of the composites to cleavage step and river pattern is explored in the final part of this paper.