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<div class="htmlview paragraph">In this work, triaxial carbon fiber – epoxy composite laminates were
manufactured and tested to determine the influence of environmental temperature
and strain rate on the mechanical properties, and finite element models were
developed to understand how those temperature and strain rate dependent trends
may influence performance in a military ground vehicle application. As
environmental temperature increased, the strength and elastic modulus were
observed to decrease. Across all three environmental temperatures tested in this
study, as the strain rate increased, tensile strength and elastic modulus were
observed to increase as well. When applied to a composite hat section geometry,
the finite element results highlighted the importance of considering both the
environmental temperature and loading rate in the design of composite structures
for use in military ground vehicles.</div>
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