Novel cohesive beam model for the End-Notched Flexure (ENF) specimen

This paper presents a new Cohesive Beam Model (CBM) for the mode II interlaminar fracture End-Notched Flexure (ENF) specimen. The ideal linear elastic solution agrees with a recent analysis and is similar to the well-known Corrected Beam Theory. However, the cohesive zone is known to be particularly important for modelling the large mode II fracture process zone. CBM with a bilinear cohesive law agreed very well with finite element analyses. Comparison with experimental results for two carbon/epoxy laminates indicated that the bilinear cohesive law provides a fairly good conservative approximation.