A novel method for measuring the through-thickness shear moduli of anisotropic plates from surface deformation measurements

The present study is dedicated to a novel method aimed at measuring the through-thickness shear moduli of anisotropic plates from surface deformation measurements. The first part of the paper presents the derivation of a relationship linking the through-thickness average of the interlaminar shear strain to surface deformations. A short description on how this feature could be made use of through the Virtual fields Method is then given. The second part of the paper describes the validation of this new relationship on simulated finite element data, and then, on experimental data obtained through speckle interferometry. It is shown that the practical use of this technique is very challenging but initial results are promising, provided that some correction is applied to the raw data.