Microscopical observations of inter-fibre failure under tension

The development of experimental studies aiming to check the relevance of the aforementioned numerical results is crucial. Based on this, this research focused on the tensile test under different loading levels of specimens manufactured from carbon-epoxy cross-ply symmetrical laminates. The microscopic observation of the 90° layers leads to the analysis of the appearance of the transverse cracks as a function of the load, the identification of the previously numerically predicted stages of the mechanism of damage, the measurement of key parameters and the evaluation of the influence of nearby fibres. A clear connection between the numerical and experimental results has been found.