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Comparison Between Flexural and Tensile Modulus of Fibre Composites

Flexural Modulus and Youngs Modulus

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408 views

Comparison Between Flexural and Tensile Modulus of Fibre Composites

Flexural Modulus and Youngs Modulus

Uploaded by

mehtabpathan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Fibre Science and Technology 21 (1984) 319-326

Comparison between Flexural and Tensile Modulus of


Fibre Composites
G6ran Tolf
Materials Laboratory, Atlas Copco MCT AB, S-104 84, Stockholm (Sweden)

and
Per Clarin
Department of Mechanics, Royal Institute of Technology, S-100 44, Stockholm (Sweden)

SUMMARY
The difference between flexural and tensile Young's modulus, as
experienced experimentally, is analysed theoretically. It can be explained
by large shear deformation and a heterogeneous cross section, making the
formulae from elementary bending of beams incorrect. Some recommendations for performing three-point bending tests are given at the end
of the paper.

1.

INTRODUCTION

The elastic modulus of fibre composites is measured either by pure


tension or by three-point bending. Three-point bending is usually
preferred owing to the simplicity in manufacturing test specimens and in
performing the test. However, it is a well-known fact that these two
methods do not give the same result for the elastic modulus. The reason
for this has been analysed earlier 1 and is attributed to shear deformation
in the three-point bending test. In ref. 1 there are also recommendations
on how to perform a three-point bending test. Thus, one would think, the
national standards have been changed, so that the difference in results
between the two test methods can be accounted for in an accurate way.
319
Fibre Science and Technology 0015-0568/84/$03.00 Elsevier Applied Science Publishers

Ltd, England, 1984. Printed in Great Britain

Gdran Toll, Per Clarin

320

However, this is not the case at all. In Sweden the international


standard ISO R 178 is used when performing three-point bending tests on
composites, despite the fact that this standard was originally developed
for non-reinforced plastics. It gives 16 as the lowest allowable length-towidth ratio of the test specimen, compared with the suggested value of 60
given in ref. 1.
The Swedish company ASEA Plast AB, manufacturing advanced
reinforced plastic products, asked us to investigate this problem and to try
to explain the difference between the two test methods.
The difference can be explained by two reasons. The first is that the
specimens used in the three-point bending test are too short, giving rise to
large shear deformations, and thus making the formulae from elementary
beam bending incorrect. The other reason can be found when doing the
measurement on a laminated beam. In this case the heterogeneous cross
section gives a stress distribution that is not continuously linear but only
piecewise linear, thus making the elementary formulae incorrect.
In the next two sections we give a short analysis of these two
phenomena and compare them with experimental results in Section 4.
Finally, we give some recommendations in Section 5.

2.

SHEAR D E F O R M A T I O N

The easiest way to take account of shear deformation is to use the


Timoshenko theory for bending of beams. 2 In this theory the cross
section is assumed to remain plane but, unlike the elementary theory, it is
free to rotate relative to the centre-line of the beam. This gives a constant
shear stress over the cross section. It is a simple matter to calculate the
deflection under the load according to Fig. 1, using this theory, and we get
PI 3
[ E /h~27
w-4~l ~4~----~GA-We
l+~)J

(1)

where E is the Young's modulus along the beam, G is the shear modulus in
the plane of deformation, w e ( = p 1 3 / 4 8 E I )
is the deflection from
elementary theory and k is a constant taking account of the fact that the
shear stress is not constant over the cross section.
For a rectangular beam we have k = 5/6. For an explanation of the
remaining symbols, we refer to Fig. 1.

Flexuraland tensilemodulusoffibre composites

321

L
Fig. 1. The bending test and cross section configurations.
We can see that for an isotropic beam, having E/G around 2.5, the error
made by using the elementary theory is small when l/h = 16, as is
suggested in I S O R 178. However, for an anisotropic beam having E/G
around 50, the error in w is, for l/h = 16, over 20 ~o. The elastic modulus E
is determined from

P13 I
E /h'~27
E /h'~27
E-4-~-wl
1+~-~7)
J=E.I 1+~)
J
where E e is the Young's modulus determined by ISO R 178. Thus we see
that we get the same error in E as in w. The best way to correct this error
would be to estimate or measure G, or simply to use specimens with l/h
large enough to make the error in the second term in E small. To get the
same error in E as for an isotropic beam having l/h = 16, we would have to
take l/h = 60 when E/G = 50, the same value as is suggested in ref. 1. It is,
of course, a disadvantage to manufacture such long specimens, but this is
still the only way to keep the error small.

3.

HETEROGENEOUS

CROSS SECTION

Another problem is encountered when analysing laminated composite


beams. D u e to the different elastic moduli and principal directions
between the layers, the stress distribution over the cross section is not
continuous, but only continuous and linear within each layer. Without
taking account of shear deformation we can, for example, suppose that
we use test specimens that are long enough according to the previous

Gi4ran Tolf, Per Clarin

322

paragraph, so that Young's modulus in tension, E t, and bending, Eb, c a n


be determined from: 3
N

E, = ~

Eit i

(2)

i=1

4Z( )
N

E b =

h~

Eit i 3 -2 +

(3)

i=1

where E i is the Young's modulus of layer i, ti is the thickness of layer i, z i is


the distance from the centre-line to layer i and N is the number of layers.
We can see that the two results generally coincide only when we have
one layer. In the bending test we overestimate the importance of the outer
layers.
This problem can never be accounted for, and we must accept that there
is a difference between the two types of Young's modulus. If we have a
composite structure subjected to bending we must u s e E b in the design
process and conversely we must use E t for in-plane loading of the same
composite.

4.

COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTS

To compare these results with experiments, a balanced symmetrical


laminate was manufactured by taking four layers of a E-glass mat, surface
weight 3 0 0 g m -2, three layers of E-glass roving, surface weight
900 g m - 2 , and using polyester as matrix.
The test specimens were cut out so that the roving was along the
specimen. The tension test specimens were fabricated according to
I S O R 5 2 7 , while the bending test specimens had width 10mm, height
4 m m and lengths between 70 m m and 260 mm. Nine or ten samples of
each specimen were fabricated.
In Fig. 2 we can see how the Young's modulus calculated from
ISO R 178, E e, varies with l/h. The broken line is the value calculated from
Fig. 3, as explained below. We can rewrite eqn (1) as

4bhw
PI

1(~) 2
- E

+ kG

(4)

Flexural and tensile modulus of fibre composites

323

E
GPa

20
19
18
17

tt t

16

15
14

13
12
11
10

<

>

Fig. 2.

20

30

4o

50

60

Young's modulus determined from ISO R 178 as a function o f

a n d in Fig. 3 we see 4bhw/Pl as a f u n c t i o n o f


can calculate b o t h E a n d G, a n d we get

(l/h) 2. F r o m

1/h

l/h.

this figure we

E = 16.9 _ 2.5 G P a
G = 0-52 _ 0.08 G P a
T o investigate the cross section we used a c a m e r a - s u p p l i e d m i c r o s c o p e
to take p h o t o g r a p h s o f the cross section, see Fig. 4. F r o m these
p h o t o g r a p h s we c o u l d d e t e r m i n e t i a n d zi. T o g e t h e r with the estimates
f r o m earlier e x p e r i m e n t s Ema,= 1 0 G P a a n d Eroving = 3 0 G P a , we can
calculate E t a n d E b f r o m eqns (2) a n d (3), with the result E t = 20 G P a a n d
E b = 17 G P a . This result can be c o m p a r e d with the e x p e r i m e n t a l l y
d e t e r m i n e d E t = 19.0 + 1 G P a a n d , as we saw, E b = 16-9 -4- 2.5 G P a .
T h u s , we see t h a t the c o r r e c t i o n given b y t a k i n g a c c o u n t o f the s h e a r
d e f o r m a t i o n is quite a c c u r a t e , a n d t h a t we actually need, at least in this
case, l/h = 40 to get a small e r r o r in E b.

G6ran Tolf, Per Clarin

324

4bhw
PI

lO-3mm2/i

22.5

200

175

150

Z25

I00

75

5O

25

([lh) 2
i

0.5

1.5

Fig. 3.

2 I

,5

5~

The experimentally-determined eqn (4).

~xlO 3

Flexural and tensile modulus of fibre composites

Fig. 4.

325

Microscope picture of the cross section.

We can also see, from the investigation of the cross section, that the
predicted difference between E t and E b does exist, and can be explained by
usual laminate theory.

5.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In order to get small errors in Eb, it is essential to get an estimate of E/G,


so that we can use eqn(1) to determine the necessary l/h ratio for the
bending test specimen. If we cannot estimate E/G, we must perform
several tests with different l/h ratios.
The difference between E t and E b due to heterogeneous cross section
always exists. Depending on the loading of the composite, i.e. whether
bending or in-plane loading is used, we must measure the design
parameter that is of interest to us.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank The Swedish Board of Technical Development
ASEA Plast AB, who sponsored this work, ASEA Plast AB
manufacturing the test specimens and giving us access to their
equipment, and Professor Kurt Berglund at ASEA Plast AB
rewarding discussions during this work.

and
for
test
for

326

G6ran Tolf, Per Clarin

REFERENCES
1. C. Zweben, W. S. Smith and M. W. Wardle, Composite materials: testing and
design, ASTM STP 674, 1979, pp. 228-62.
2. Y.C. Fung, Foundations of solid mechanics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey, 1965.
3. R. M. Jones, Mechanics of composite materials, Scripta Book Co.,
Washington, D.C., 1975.

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