IDENTIFICATION OF LAYERS DISTRIBUTION IN THE COMPOSITE COUPON USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD AND THREE POINT BENDING TEST

The main objective of the study is to develop experimentally validated FE model and perform numerical analysis of layered composites made by hand lay-up techniques during tension and bending test. The research object is glass - polyester laminate made of four unidirectional layers. In order to validate the numerical models experimental test were performed. Due to the very different stiffness modulus in tension and bending loading the material properties obtained from standard test are not suitable to apply in numerical model. Significantly different behaviour compared to experimental test was obtained for tree point bending where the numerical model becomes too stiff. Simple coupons, relatively easy to manufacture presented in the paper have very low quality. The differences in actual and theoretical bending stiffness (obtained from tension stiffness) exceed 70%. In order to represent the actual structure the layers of the composite were divided by resin layers and also additional resin layer at the top and bottom of the model were defined. Single stage optimization process was used to adjust the material layout. After layer set-up modification very significant improvement can be seen for flexural behaviour