Stress and Failure Analysis of a Pin-Loaded Composite Plate: An Experimental Study

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Abstract
A graphite/epoxy quasi-isotropic composite plate was loaded through an aluminum pin. High-sensitivity moire interferometry was used to obtain fringe patterns of in-plane displacement components near the pin-plate contact surface. Stresses around and near the contact surface were determined from the experimentally obtained displacements using a localized hybrid approach which consisted of introducing the displacements around a local region of interest into a finite element analysis. X-ray radiography and optical microscopy were employed in a failure analysis of the plate. Stress distributions on the near contact interface were obtained. Local damage was also documented successfully. A simple failure prediction based on classical laminate theory gave good agreement with the observed location of damage. Valuable local aspects fric tional phenomena were documented.