Effect of fiber wrinkling on the strength of composites

 

It is difficult to manufacture parts with complex shapes due to undesired defects occuring during manufacturing. For example, wrinkles, buckling of plies during lay-up of prepreg-based multilayer composites, etc. are observed in the corner section of the L-shaped parts. In order to quantify the influence of fibre waviness on stiffness and strength reduction of unidirectional composite materials some analytical studies have been done. L-Shaped parts are produced by introducing excessive fibre waviness artificially to corner sections, and the strength values of these parts are compared to parts manufactured by conventional lay-up method.