Progressive delamination and fiber bridging modeling in double cantilever beam composite specimens

The dependence of R-curves on the geometry of double cantilever beam (DCB) specimens was investigated for a unidirectional epoxy–carbon composite. Extended bridging was observed during the crack propagation and R-curves for three different thicknesses were obtained. A simple numerical procedure was proposed for the crack propagation modeling by taking into account linear and nonlinear bridging laws. The results were compared with different...