Central tearing behavior of PVDF coated fabrics with multiple initial notches

Abstract Tear failure is an essential issue for membrane structures, but always ignored in the current design specifications or codes. This paper presents the central tearing behaviors of PVDF coated fabrics with initial notches. Then, the influence of notches number, notches length, and notches orientation were considered. Finally, the tearing mechanisms under multiple initial notches were systematically studied. The results show that the strength of PVDF coated fabrics is significantly affected by the parameters of initial notches, which is significantly related to the failure modes. Among all the factors, the initial notches' length has the greatest influence on specimens' failure strength. With the initial notch length increases, the tear strength decreases, and the elongation at break remains almost unchanged. As the distance between multiple notches increases, the tear strength decreases, and the elongation at break increases. As the notch angle of inclination increases, the tear strength increases, and the elongation at break increases. It can provide important references to the design and analysis of membrane structures.