Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497 www.elsevier.

com/locate/compscitech

A study of the eects of various geometric parameters on the failure strength of pin-loaded woven-glass-ber reinforced epoxy laminate
Buket Okutan*, Zu leyha Aslan, Ramazan Karakuzu
. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey Received 23 October 2000; received in revised form 27 February 2001; accepted 13 March 2001

Abstract The aim of this study is to examine the eects of woven ber, specimen width-to-hole diameter ratio (W/D), and the ratio of edge distance to hole diameter (E/D) on the bearing strength of woven laminated composites. Glass/epoxy composites were manufactured under pressure by moulds at 120 C. The mechanical properties and strengths of the composites were obtained experimentally. The glass/epoxy woven composites were loaded through pins. Single-hole pin-loaded specimens were tested for their tensile response and W/D and E/D ratios evaluated. Failure propagation and failure type were observed on the specimens. The inuence of the joint geometry on the strength of the pin-loaded composites was assessed. The experimental results show that the ultimate load capacity of woven-glass-ber, reinforced epoxy laminates with pin connections was increased by increasing W and E. However increasing the E/D ratio beyond 2 and increasing the W/D ratio beyond 3 have an insignicant eect on the ultimate load capability of the connection. # 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Pin; Woven-fabric; B. Strength; A. Glass bers; A. Layered structures

1. Introduction In advanced engineering elds such as aerospace engineering, composites have found applications because of their high strength/weight ratios. These applications usually require the joining of composites either to other composites or to metals. Most commonly, joints are formed by using mechanical fasteners. Pin joints are unavoidable in complex structures because of their low cost, simplicity, and facilitation of disassembly for repair. It is important, therefore, to determine the failure strength and failure modes of these pinned connections. In most research on pinned joints, the interactions between pin diameter, D, and composite dimensions such as width, W, and distance from hole center to composite end, E, resulting in W/D and E/D ratios, are the main parameters for joint design. Glass-ber-reinforced composites oer the most reliable engineering materials compared with other composites by virtue of a large technology base and experience in service. Where high Youngs modulus values are not
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-3884000, ext. 2255. E-mail address:obuket@izmir.eng.deu.edu.tr (B. Okutan) .

required, they continue to provide one of the best lowcost materials for normal applications. Composites containing woven forms of ber are characterized by high fracture toughness and ease of handling. Their integrated nature provides balanced in-plane properties. The transverse tensile strength of woven-fabric composites is much higher than that of unidirectional composites. Many investigators have studied the strength of mechanically fastened joints in composite structures. The strength of such joints depends on many factors, including joint geometry, bre orientation, stacking sequence, through-thickness pressure, etc. [1]. A large part of the research that has been done on mechanically fastened joints has been concerned with the experimental and numerical determination of the inuence of geometric factors on the joint strength. Larry and Mahmood [2] have numerically investigated 2D progressive damage modeling of composite pinned-joint failure. In their study, the specimens where the hole is located too close to the sides, W/D < 3, or too close to the edge E/D < 3, were characterized as weak. Aktas and Karakuzu [3] have carried out a failure analysis of carbon-ber-reinforced epoxy composite plate pinned joints. Failure load and failure mode were analysed

0266-3538/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0266-3538(01)00043-4

1492

B. Okutan et al. / Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497

Nomenclature W E D t tT L a, b, h, LT Fmax P Pmax laminate width end distance hole diameter laminate thickness thickness of T specimen distance between the hole center and xed end dimensions of the T specimen rupture load applied T specimen tensile load maximum failure load

E1, E2 12 G12  ult b Xc Xt Yc Yt S "1 "2

elastic moduli in material directions poissons ratio shear modulus shearing failure strength bearing strength ply longitudinal compressive strength ply longitudinal tensile strength ply transversal compressive strength ply transversal tensile strength ply shearing strength longitudinal strain transverse strain

numerically and experimentally. They found that full bearing strength was developed when E/D and W/D ratios were equal to or greater than 4. Chang and Scott [4] have developed a computer code which can be applied to joints involving ber-reinforced laminates with dierent ply orientations, dierent material properties, and dierent congurations, including dierent hole sizes, hole positions and thickness. Chang and Scott [5] have extended their analysis to laminates containing two pin load holes placed either in parallel or in series. Mathews [6] has experimentally studied the eect of stacking sequence on the pin bearing strength in glassbre-reinforced plastic. The results suggested that placing the 90 layer (normal to the applied load) at or next to the surface increases the bearing strength. Thickness eect of pinned joints for composites was investigated by Dahsin [7]. He has studied the interaction between the pin diameter and composite thickness. Results show that thick composites with small pins and thin composites with large pins had lower eciencies for joint stiness and joint strength than those having similar dimensions between pin diameter and composite thickness. Pyner and Matthews [8] have made experimental investigation about comparison of single and multi hole bolted joints in glass-bre-reinforced plastics. The results suggested that the joint strength expressed as the load/ bolt, decreases as the joint geometry becomes increasingly complex. Collings [9] has discussed the eects of variables such as ply orientation, laminate thickness and bolt clamping pressure. Collings [10] has also tested CFRP for a range of laminate congurations and hole sizes, and investigated the relation between joint strength and W/D, E/D and t/d. Chen et al. [11] have studied the inuence of weave structure on pin-loaded strength of orthogonal 3D composites. They evaluated the inuences of reinforcement type, weave structure, specimen width-to-diameter ratio and edge distance-tohole diameter ratio. Naby and Hollaway [12] have

investigated behavior of bolted joints in pultruded composite materials experimentally. They obtained the critical end distance and showed that this distance depends on the width of the joint. Khashaba [13] has conducted an experimental study to determine the notched and pin bearing strength of GFRP composites having various values of ber volume fractions. The results show that ber volume fraction has a signicant eect on load-pin bearing displacement behavior and the value of W/D must be greater than 5 for the development of full bearing strength of the composite laminates. The experimental and numerical studies about woven composites are restricted compared with laminated composites made of unidirectional layers. Refs. [1417] have used glass, carbon, kevlar woven reinforced composites in their studies. In this study, the failure loads and modes depending on E/D and W/D ratios have been determined on woven ber glass reinforced epoxy laminates. Woven-fabric and unidirectional laminated composites which have the same W/D and E/D ratios can appear to have dierent behavior according to the failure load and failure modes. Therefore, the sample tests were performed in order to predict especially the eects of the woven ber to the failure strength for pin-loaded woven glass/epoxy composites.

2. Problem denition It is desired to nd the maximum failure load Pmax that can be applied before the joint fails and the mode of failure for each geometry. In this study, a laminated composite plate with a single circular hole with a pin is used. Pin strength is very high compared with that of the composite plate. For this reason the failure of the pin has been neglected. The geometry of the composite plate is shown in Fig. 1. A hole of diameter D is located along the centerline of the

B. Okutan et al. / Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497

1493

1. Material parameter: ber types and form, resin type, ber orientation, laminate stacking sequence, etc. 2. Geometry parameters: specimen width (W) or ratio of width to hole diameter (W/D), edge distance (E) or ratio of the edge distance to hole diameter (E/ D), specimen thickness (t), hole size (D). 3. Fastener parameter: fastener type, clamping area, hole size. 4. Design parameters: loading type, loading direction, failure criteria.
Fig. 1. Geometry of laminated composite plate with circular hole.

plate at a distance E from one end of the plate. A uniform tensile load P is applied to the plate and this load is resisted by the rigid pin, supported outside the laminate. The load is parallel to the plate and is symmetric with respect to the centerline. There are, in general, three basic joint failure modes related to composite failure: net-tension, shear out and bearing, although, in practice, combinations of these failure modes are possible. Typical damages due to each mechanism are shown in Fig. 2. Especially, the appearance of the net-tension failure is catastrophic, immediate and without warning. Therefore, the designer should choose optimal W/D and E/D ratios to avoid such catastrophic and immediate failure at structural elements in practical applications. Joint failure modes for composite materials are generally not similar to those observed in metals, in which the metal exhibits considerable yielding prior to fracture. Yielding does not occur in these kinds of composites, but some form of pseudo-yielding can be experienced for certain lay-ups in which delamination and partial ber breakage occurs before nal failure. So the failure modes of ber reinforced materials in pinloaded tests are dicult to observe clearly. The behavior of the joint could be inuenced by four groups of parameters:

Clearly, there are a great number of variables involved in practical joints, so complete characterization of joint behavior is impossible. But the behavior of pinned joints is highly dependent on the hole geometric dimensions of the connection, including the edge distance (E) and width (W). Experimental data in the current study are obtained from single pin-loaded specimens, loaded in tension. To estimate the strength of single pin-loaded specimens, the static strengths are dened as; Bearing strength b P=D:t Shearing failure strength ult P=2:E:t

3. Experimental details The ber-reinforced composite material used in this study was produced at Dokuz Eylu l University Mechanical Laboratory. The specimens were manufactured from glass bres and epoxy resin. The ber volume fraction is approximately 40%. The composite material consists of six layers of identically oriented woven bers. The woven-glass-ber and epoxy are cured for 3 h at 120 C under pressure by moulds. Finished laminates are cooled under pressure, removed from press and trimmed to size. The thickness of the material is produced as 1.5 mm. Certain experiments described below, were performed to measure the mechanical properties. To nd the E1, 12, Xt, values, a at piece of lamina whose principal axes coincides with loading direction was taken and two strain-gauges perpendicular to each other were stuck on. One of them was on principal and other is on transverse direction. The specimen was loaded step by step to rupture by Instron-1114 Tensile Testing Machine of 50 kN capacity at a ratio of 0.5 mm/ min and for all steps "1 and "2 are measured by an indicator. By using these strains, the properties of the above material were obtained.

Fig. 2. Typical failure mechanisms for the pinned-joint conguration.

1494

B. Okutan et al. / Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497

To dene Xc, a at piece of lamina whose principal axis coincides with the loading direction was taken and it was subjected to compressive loading. E2, Yt, Yc are equal to E1, Xt, Xc respectively, because of the woven structure. To obtain the shear modulus G12, a at piece of lamina whose principal axis was on 45 was taken and a strain gauge was stuck on loading direction of the lamina. The specimen was loaded step by step up to rupture by a test machine and G12 was calculated by measurement of "x which is the strain in the tensile direction [18]. A simple method has been used to determine the remaining property S [19]. A at lamina which has a T shape was taken (Fig. 3) and loaded up to rupture. Minimum clearance was left to prevent bending and to provide contact between specimen and metal support. The load at rupture (Fmax) was taken and shear strength was calculated by the following equation. S Fmax 2:h:tT

The dimensions of the specimen are chosen as h=5 mm, LT=80 mm, a=10 mm and b=40 mm. tT is the thickness of the plate. Mechanical properties and strengths of the composite are given Table 1. A series of experiments were performed on dierent pin loaded composite laminates with woven stacking sequence. The eect of the woven ber and laminate geometry on the joint response was studied by varying

the width to diameter (W/D) and edge distance to diameter (E/D) ratios. The geometries correspond to two subgroups of experiments: Variation of specimen width and variation of specimen edge distances. The rst subgroup, variation of specimen width, consisted of varying W while keeping the other geometrical parameters, D, E, L, t constant. W/D was varied from W/D=2 to 5. The second subgroup, variation of specimen edge distance, consisted of varying E while keeping D, W, L, t constant. E/D was varied from E/D=1 to 5. The experiments were performed in tension mode on an Instron Tensile Machine which was connected to a computer for data storage. The pin diameter was 5 mm. The lower edge of the specimen was clamped and loaded from the pin. The distance between the center of the hole and clamped edge and the thickness of the specimens were held constant at 50 and 1.5 mm, respectively. Loading was performed by stretching the specimens at a ratio of 0.5 mm/min. Load was applied to the specimen by means of a steel pin and lugs; the loading arrangement is shown in Fig. 4. Specimens were placed between the two steel lugs with minimum clearance. Upon loading the composite plate to nal failure, it is observed how failure is aected by geometry, specially the variation of plate width and hole position. The load-pin displacement diagrams for all composite congurations were plotted.

4. Results and discussion It has been observed that the load/displacement curves were initially straight, but after initial failure, the load supported by the specimens was reduced. Following this, the specimens continued to sustain the load under increasing displacements. Final failure of the specimens was by shear-out. This was followed by a uniform decrease of the load with increasing deforma-

Fig. 3. Shear test setup. Table 1 Mechanical properties and strengths of the composite materials Properties Longitudinal modulus E1=E2 Shear modulus G12 Poissons ratio 12 Normal tensile strength Xt=Yt Normal compression strength Xc=Yc Shearing strength S Magnitudes 20 GPa 461 MPa 0.25 473 MPa 473 MPa 85 MPa

Fig. 4. Testing xture.

B. Okutan et al. / Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497

1495

Fig. 5. Typical load/displacement curves for pin-loaded woven-glass-ber-reinforced epoxy laminates.

tions. The nal failure of specimens seems to occur when the damage area reaches a certain distance from the end of the specimen. In this investigation, two basic failure modes consisting of net-tension and shear-out failure were observed for the dierent geometric dimensions. All the connections tested showed signs of bearing mode damage in the vicinity of the pin hole after failure, where damage occurred in the laminate area adjacent to the loaded half of the hole. Some of the failed specimens showed signs of tensile failure damage at the section of minimum area. Tensile failure occurred for specimens which had small width and large end distance. When the width was increased, the specimens which had small end distances failed in the shear-out modes. When the end distance was increased,

bearing failure developed in addition to shear-out failure. For short end distances, failure extended very rapidly. Table 2 gives the rst failure and failure loads for specimens. From the tables, it can be seen that increasing the end distance increased the strength of the joint until a critical end distance was reached-any increase of the end distance over that value did not result in a corresponding increase in the strength of the joint. When the results of these experiments were compared with the results of a set of experiments performed using carbon
Table 2 Failure loads for all congurations Composite Loads (N) E/D=1 E/D=2 E/D=3 E/D=4 E/D=5 First failure load Failure load First failure load Failure load First failure load Failure load First failure load Failure load First failure load Failure load Loads for W/D =2 W/D =3 W/D =4 W/D =5 240 656 350 1039 360 1219 480 1152 520 1100 310 969 400 1929 560 2067 640 1959 550 1964 390 922 550 2008 800 2050 900 1891 800 1790 400 873 600 1934 850 2010 1100 1700 900 1750

Fig. 6. The eect of edge distance ratio on the shearing strength.

1496

B. Okutan et al. / Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497

parameters were observed. It was conrmed that the behavior of these joints depend on the geometric parameters. The critical end distance has been obtained experimentally and it was shown that this distance depends on the width of joint. Some of the important observations and conclusions derived from the experimental studies are summarized as follows:
Fig. 7. The eect of edge distance ratio on the bearing strength.

Fig. 8. The eect of width to diameter ratio on the bearing strength.

and glass reinforced laminated composites given in published papers [2,9,20] it is seen that the characteristics of the curves of bearing strengths versus W/D and E/D ratios were nearly similar. Using glass/epoxy material, bearing strengths are compared for various geometries. It can be seen that critical E/D ratio is 2. The eect of E/D ratio on the shearing strength and pin bearing strength of the composite are shown in Figs. 6 and 7. The mode of failure changed from the bearing to net-tension or shear-out with decreasing E/D. This mode change is associated with a considerable drop in load-carrying capacity. The eect of W/D ratio on the pin bearing strength is presented in Fig. 8. As can be seen, pin-loaded strength decreases with decreasing W/D ratio. As the width of the specimen decreases, there is a point where the mode of failure changes from the bearing to tension i.e. the specimen fails across the width at the net-tension. Typical load/displacement curves for specimens are displaced in Fig. 5. The graphs indicate that the specimens were able to support between 200 and 300 N after failure occurred. The reason for this might be the friction and interlocking associated with pushing the separated wedge in front of the pin out of the plate. After excessive displacement of the pin, the load dropped suddenly. The displacement at which failure occurred can be seen to vary from 0.2 mm for narrow specimens with short end distances to 0.8 mm for wide specimens with long end distances.

1. Ultimate load capacity of the all dierent congurations of the pin connections increased by increasing the geometric dimensions. In other words, a trend of increasing bearing strength with increasing the edge distance (E) to hole diameter (D) ratio (E/D) was established. However, it was found that increasing the E/D ratio beyond 2 had an insignicant eect on the ultimate load capacity of the connection. Failure modes were found as bearing mode which is the best mode of resisting load. For the small value of 2 the mode is found as shear-out which is a weak type of failure. 2. When the value of W/D is smaller than 3, specimens are said to be weak. As the mode transitions to bearing mode of failure, the nal failure stabilizes and becomes independent of geometry. 3. Failure mode inuences the pin bearing strength. Because of this, discussion of the eect of E/D or W/ D ratio on pin bearing strength has to be combined with a consideration of the related failure mode. Having completed our present study, our next work will be concentrated on the topics concerning the failure strength prediction of pin joints on dierent material properties such as ber volume fraction and woven ply orientation. Naturally, the prediction of failure strength pinned joints includes a number of important related topics, such as numerical techniques and signicantly accurate experiments. Hence, the present work will be benecial to our further numerical and experimental studies about the laminated composites pinned joint. Especially, this study will be used to provide a comparison for numerical investigations. References
[1] Hart-Smith LJ. Mechanically-fastened joints for advanced composites-phenomelogical considerations and simple analysis. In: Leneo EM, Oplinger DW, Burke JJ, editors. Fibrous composites in structural design. New York: Plenum Press,1980. [2] Lessard LB, Shokrieh MM. Two dimensional modeling of composite pinned-joint failure. J Comp Mater 1995;29:67197. [3] Aktas A, Karakuzu R. Failure analysis of two dimensional carbon-epoxy composite plate pinned joint. Mech Comp Mater Struc 1999;6:34761. [4] Chang FK, Scott RA, Springer GS. Strength of mechanically fastened composite joints. J Comp Mater 1982;16:47094.

5. Conclusion The failure strengths of pin-loaded woven ber-glassreinforced epoxy laminate have been investigated experimentally. The eects of changing the geometric

B. Okutan et al. / Composites Science and Technology 61 (2001) 14911497 [5] Chang FK, Scott RA. Failure composite laminates containing pin loaded holes method of solution. J Comp Mater 1984; 18:25578. [6] Matthews FL, Quinn WJ. The eect of stacking sequence on the pin-bearing strength in glass bre reinforced plastic. J Comp Mater 1977;11:13945. [7] Liu D, Raju BB, You J. Thickness eects on pinned joints for composites. J Comp Mater 1999;33:221. [8] Pyner GR, Matthews FL. Comprasion of single and multi-hole bolted joints in glass bre reinforced plastic. J Comp Mater 1979; 13:2339. [9] Collings TA. The strength of bolted joints in multi-directional CFRP laminates. Composites 1977: 43-55. [10] Collings TA. On the bearing strengths of CFRP laminates. Composites 1982:241-52. [11] Chen JC, Chiu CH, Chin H. On the inuence of weave structure on pin-loaded strength of ortogonal 3D composites. J Comp Mater 1994;30:25162. [12] Abd-El-Naby SFM, Hollaway L. The experimantal behaviour of bolted joints in pultruded glass/polyester material. Part 1: singlebolt joints. J Comp Mater 1993;24:5318.

1497

[13] Khashaba UA. Notched and pin bearing stregths of GFRP composite laminates. J Comp Mater 1996;30:204254. [14] Hiroshi T, Jun T. Bearing failure in plain woven C/C composites. J Mater Sci Letters 1997;16:9935. [15] Akay M, Kong Ah Mun S. Bearing strength of autoclave and oven cured Kevlar/epoxy laminates under static and dynamic loading. Composites 1995;26:4516. [16] Pierron F, Cerisier F, Grediac M. Numerical and experimental study of woven composite pin-joints. J Comp Mater 2000; 34:102854. [17] Naik NK, Sekher YC, Meduri S. Damage in woven-fabric composites subjected to low-velocity impact. Comp Sci Technol 2000; 60:73144. [18] Jones RM. Mechanics of composite materials. Tokyo: McGrawHill, 1998. [19] Aktas A, Karakuzu R. Failure analysis of two-dimensional carbon-epoxy composite plate pinned joint. Mech Comp Mater Struct 1999;6:34761. [20] Matthews FL, Roshan AA, Phillips LN. The bolt bearing strength of glass/carbon hybrid composites. Composites 1982: 2257.