Transverse cracking in the bulk and at the free edge of thin-ply composites: Experiments and multiscale modelling

Thin-ply composites were shown to exhibit significantly delayed transverse cracking, but the linear onset of damage scaling with ply thickness reported by Amacher et al. (2014) did not correspond to the established LEFM based in situ strength model. This study further investigates this experimental behaviour by simultaneously comparing in situ free edge crack observation with acoustic emission measurements as well as performing ex-situ X-ray...