Correlation of tensile and bending strength of composites with a circular hole

Abstract

While significant studies have been conducted on composites containing a circular or an elliptic hole under tensile loading, few investigations have been reported on notched composites under bending due to the complex nature of the problem. In this paper, a correlation of strengths of orthotropic plates containing a circular hole under tension and bending has been proposed based on Lekhnitskii s solutions for infinite width plates. Finite element analysis has been performed to verify the theoretical correlation. Uniaxial tension and four-point bending tests have also been conducted on Scotchply samples with circular holes of various sizes. A good agreement has been observed among the theoretical, FEA, and experimental results.