Static and dynamic tensile responses of glass woven fabric reinforced composites

Glass fibre has been recognized as strain rate dependent material. Its failure behaviour changes from being brittle to ductile as the strain rate increases. When loading rate increases, the strength of glass fibre increases, but the fibre within the composite becomes more prone to debond from the matrix due to the brittleness of matrix material promoted by the high strain rate. In the present study, the tensile responses of glass woven fabric reinforced vinylester composites with different fibre surface treatments are examined under static and dynamic loading conditions. The preliminary result showed that both the ductility and strength of composite increased with increasing strain rate. The tensile strength was lower and the failure strain was higher in the weft direction than in the warp direction due to the excessive crimping in the former direction. The tensile strength in general increased with increasing silane concentration for the majority of strain rates studied. The influences of fibre surface treatment on impact tensile strength and on Charpy impact fracture toughness of composite were functionally similar, confirming the dominance of fibre-matrix interphase properties in controlling the fracture behaviour at high strain rates.