Local damage in a 5-harness satin weave composite under static tension: Part I - Experimental analysis

The earliest crack events occurred inside the laminate middle layers, followed by the damage on the traction free surface. It is observed that the initiation of the transverse crack, the location of the crack in the weft yarn cross-section (centre/near the edges) is affected by the relative position of the ply in the laminate (local nesting configuration). The first part of this paper deals with the experimental characterization of sequential damage in a 5-harness satin weave composite. Part II deals with the meso-FE modeling of damage using a satin weave unit cell, and the correlation between experimental and numerical results.