Specimens, cut from a commercially produced epoxide resin reinforced by layers of glass cloth, were tested in tension at various strain-rates and temperatures, and at various orientations of the fibres to the tensile axis. Results are presented for elastic moduli, yield and fracture stresses, and elongations. These results give ample evidence of a decrease in the effectiveness of the reinforcement as deformation proceeds. Strain-ratechange tests show that the rate sensitivity of the composite rises rapidly as the strain increases beyond a critical value, which also indicates that the behaviour is increasingly governed by the properties of the matrix.
IntroductionThe fact that the addition of a second phase may be used to strengthen materials is well known. For many years this phenomenon has been technically used and theoretically investigated in metal alloys, where suitable thermal treatments can produce an optimum distribution of precipitates. The strengthening of polymers with fibres of a different material type (e.g. glass or metal) can provide even more spectacular results due to the large difference between the properties of the two phases. Such strengthening has been treated theoretically under idealized assumptions by several investigators in terms of the theory of elasticity, but few have tried to understand the thermal or dynamic properties. In a recent review [1 ], for example, only a few references to work on this subject were quoted. But it is known that polymeric materials show a considerable rate and temperature dependence in their strength properties, so that similar effects are likely to occur in reinforced polymers. The use of such materials in applications involving dynamic loading therefore depends on the study of the rate and temperature dependence of their strength and fracture behaviour.