Instability and Failure of Fiber Composites in Compression

This paper addresses the uniaxial compressive failure of unidirectional, fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites. The material that was used in this combined experimental/numerical effort was APC-2/AS4. Failure was found to result in kink bands of distinct widths oriented at an angle to the line of loading. Kink bands were preserved by conducting a series of experiments where failure was confined. Fiber misalignments in the prepreg and from...