Damage evolution in thin and thick-ply regions of ncf thin-ply laminates under off-axis uniaxial loading

The present paper presents an experimental investigation of the evolution of damage in composite laminates manufactured using NCF thin-ply laminates. The objective is to analyse the damage evolution in a thin-ply quasi-isotropic laminate under different off-axis loadings. The main feature of the analysed laminate relies on its stacking sequence, which consists on two regions with or without ply clustering. The damage occurrence and evolution for both regions has been analysed by monitoring the specimen from the free-edge. The results show that although the laminates are isotropic in stiffness they are highly anisotropic in strength. Moreover, the use of thin-plies delay and in some cases even suppress some damage mechanisms before specimens failure.