The Evaluation of Fracture Toughness for Woven Carbon Fibered Reinforced Composite Materials

This study examined how the fracture toughness is affected according to the variation of the initial crack length and the fiber arranged angle using FEA method and experimental method. Therefore, the energy release rates were calculated and compared by J-integral method and VCCT(Virtual Crack Closure Technique). The results of fracture toughness test verified these results. At this time, the locus method was used in order to determine the energy release rate. When the results of FEA were compared with those of experiment, all of those decreased with the increase of angle between load and the fiber arranged direction. The decrease was due to reducing maximum load and stiffness, and the reason of reduction has been judged that the inplane shear stress.