Quantifying fibre reorientation during axial compression of a composite through time-lapse X-ray imaging and individual fibre tracking

The sudden compressive failure of unidirectional (UD) fibre reinforced composites at loads well below their tensile strengths is a cause of practical concern. In this respect and more generally, analytical and numerical models that describe composite behaviour have been hard to verify due to a lack of experimental observation, particularly in 3D. The aim of this paper is to combine fast in-situ X-ray computed tomography (CT) with advanced image...