An experimental study on matrix crack induced delamination in composite laminates

Matrix crack induced delamination is one of the predominant failure mechanisms in laminated composites under off-axis loading. However, there exist a reduced number of experimental studies on the literature specifically devoted to this failure mechanism. In this work, an experimental campaign focused on the occurrence of matrix cracking and delamination induced by matrix crack is presented. Five different carbon–epoxy lay-ups have been tested under tensile load, leading to different damage evolutions. The experimental data has been compared with a failure criterion recently developed by the authors. A good agreement between the experimental data and the predictions of the failure criterion has been obtained.