Mode I and Mode II fracture behavior in pultruded glass fiber-polymer – Experimental and numerical investigation

Many recent works have shown that the capacity of pultruded glass fiber-polymer structural members is governed by interlaminar failure. However, there is still a lack of information regarding the fracture properties associated and the best techniques to be adopted. This paper aims to propose a testing methodology and to evaluate the interlaminar fracture of pultruded glass fiber-polymer specimens extracted from a composite bridge deck system. Both Modes I and II were investigated, through Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) and End-Loaded-Split (ELS) tests, respectively. The starter crack (or initial separation) was introduced via a water jet machine and the crack length was measured with the video extensometer technique. In all, nine different methods were applied to obtain the fracture toughness properties. The results are discussed and compared with 2D non-linear finite element models, where the cohesive zone model (CZM) approach was used. The Modified Beam Theory method (MBTASTM) presented the best results for crack propagation in Mode I, whereas differences lower than 1% from experiments were obtained when using the Corrected beam theory using effective crack length (CBTE) and the Experimental compliance method (EMC) methods for Mode II.