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A B S T R A C TIn order to understand the physics of the delamination onset in laminated composites, an experimental investigation of delamination growth is presented. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate that delamination onset occurs at lower values than G c defined by the ASTM standards, and that the strain energy release rate level at which the crack growth onset occurs under any mixed mode I/II loading is governed by the critical strain energy density (SED) approach. Quasi-static delamination experiments have been performed under mode I, mode II and mixed mode I/II loadings. The value of the strain energy release rate at the observed crack onset and the angle of the initial crack growth were correlated with the SED theory to test the validity. The acoustic emission was also used to provide more insight into the physics of the delamination growth. The investigation shows that the onset of delamination growth occurs at the strain energy release rate levels predicted by the critical SED approach, and well before reaching the critical strain energy release rate determined via delamination tests following the ASTM standards. Moreover, results indicated that the predicted angle of the initial crack for delamination onset was in a good agreement with the experimental data. linearity (NL), the point at which the delamination growth is visually observed (VIS) or the intersection of a 5% offset line (5% Max).

In this paper, by considering the absorbed energy in the fracture process zone and extension of the minimum strain energy density theory for orthotropic materials, a new mixed mode I/II failure criterion was proposed. The applicability of the new criterion, to predict the crack growth in both laminated composites and wood species, was investigated. By defining a suitable damage factor and using the mixed mode I/II micromechanical bridging model, the absorbed energy in the fracture process zone was considered. It caused the new criterion to be more compatible with the nature of the failure phenomena in orthotropic materials, unlike available ones that were conservative. A good agreement was obtained between the fracture limit curves extracted by the present criterion and the available experimental data. The theoretical results were also compared with those of the minimum strain energy density criterion to show the superiority of the newly proposed criterion.

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This paper demonstrates how the critical strain energy density in the delamination tip vicinity may be used to explain the physics of delamination growth under mixed mode I/II. A theory previously proposed to physically relate mode I and mode II delamination growth is further extended towards describing the onset of mixed mode I/II delamination. Subsequently, data from the literature is used to demonstrate that this new concept of the critical strain energy density approach indeed explains, based on the physics of the problem, the strain energy release rate level at which crack onset occurs. This critical strain energy density for the onset of delamination appears to be independent of the opening mode. This means that, in order to characterize the fracture behaviour of a laminate, fracture tests at only one loading mode are necessary. Because the load level at which the physical delamination onset occurs at the microscopic level is much lower than the traditional engineering definition of macroscopic onset, further work must reveal the relationship between the macroscopically visible delamination onset, and the microscopic onset.