The development of a modified bi-axial composite test specimen

The significance of biaxial testing is increasing with the use of composites in more complex applications and the advent of new manufacturing techniques. Existing failure theories have not been proven to be accurate for predicting failure for laminated composites and very limited test data are available for woven composites. It is believed that the fabrication process used to make composite biaxial specimens induces initial damage into the specimen. Two different methods were developed to reduce the amount of damage induced into a biaxial tests specimen. In addition, the effect of stress concentration due to a center hole added to a composite biaxial specimen is also studied.