EFFECT OF STRAIN RATE ON TENSILE FRACTURE BEHAVIOUR OF VISCOELASTIC MATRIX (POLYESTER) AND FIBER REINFORCED COMPOSITES

Tensile testing of matrix and four different fabric polyamide composites was performed at various loading rates ranging from (8.16* 10-5 to 11.66 * 10-5 m/sec) using a servohydraulic testing apparatus. Four kinds of reinforcements woven glass fiber (WGF), random glass fiber (RGF), kevler fiber (KF) and carbon fiber (CF), and one kind of viscoelastic matrix, polyester (P). The results showed that the linear strain (≤ 0.5) the three parameter model gives a good agreement with experimental results. The elastic modules of the viscoelastic matrix and composites tend to increase with increase of both strain rate and time. The experimental results were comparison with numerical results for simple study case has shown some agreement, which indicate the effectiveness of the ansys program used.