On the influence of fabric layer shifts on the strain distributions in a multi-layer woven composite

The influence of the relative shift between fabric layers on the local strain distributions at the mesoscopic scale of a four-layer plain weave glass fiber/epoxy matrix composite is studied through Finite Element (FE) modeling. The surface strain fields of several representative unit cells, consisting of compacted and nested plain weave layups with different layer shifts and the matrix complement, are compared to strain fields measured...