The nonlinear viscoelastic characterization of graphite/epoxy composites

Abstract

Abstract Fiber reinforced plastics offer many structural advantages for a variety of designs. Before these material systems can achieve more widespread usage, however, some of the unanswered questions regarding the long‐term behavior and durability of these materials must be answered. Nonlinear compliance data is presented for T300/934 and T300/5208 graphite/epoxy composites. Several nonlinear viscoelastic techniques are compared for modeling the response. Comments for applying nonlinear models to orthotropic materials are given. A procedure for predicting long term laminate response from short term unidirectional data is reviewed.