Experimental investigation on the compression and crush responses of cross-ply laminates with 0° plies of unidirectionally arrayed chopped strand

In this paper, the static compression and progressive crush properties of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy cross-ply laminates with different stacking sequence [(0/90)4]s and [(90/0)4]s and with different kind of 0° plies were investigated experimentally. Unidirectionally Arrayed Chopped Strand (UACS) plies with highly aligned slits of bi-angle pattern and staggered pattern were used as 0° ply, respectively, instead of conventional continuous fiber ply to study the effects of UACS ply on the compression and progressive crush responses of cross-ply laminates. Effects of stacking sequence [(0/90)4]s and [(90/0)4]s and UACS 0° plies on the compressive strength and the progressive crush properties, such as the maximum peak load, energy absorption, crush mean load, and crush force efficiency are clarified. Experimental results showed that the [(90/0)4]s laminate with UACS 0° plies of bi-angle slit pattern improves about 49% of energy absorption and the [(90/0)4]s laminate with UACS 0° plies of staggered slit pattern improves about 30% energy absorption compared to conventional cross-ply laminate.