Numerical study on the fracture toughness of Balsa/PVC sandwich composite materials

Damage tolerance is important for all engineering materials but is critical for composite materials. In service composite materials develop interlaminar defects known as delaminations or debonds. These defects can usually be attributed to poor manufacturing or low velocity impact. Evaluation of such damage is critical because it can lead to catastrophic failure of the entire structure.The aim of this study to investigate the fracture toughness teorically of PVC/Balsa composite materials with finite elemants method.The study that approached at the USA North Carolina Institute, PVC and Balsa cores of various densities and has e-glass vinylester / carbon epoxy face sheets specimens fabricated for find the fracture tougness with the experimantel method and realese the results.The scope of this thesis, the experimental methods that made by Shivakumar fracture toughness values obtained of the sandwich composite material as the numerical simulation with ANSYS has been performed. Modeling is also used in the experiment was carried out with modified Mode I CSB test.Using the numerical finite element method with ANSYS software the fracture toughness values have been determined and the results found with the experimental methods are compared with the results made by ANSYS and the data with a table was presented to the reader at the end of the thesis.Keywords : PVC, Balsa, Sandwich Composites, Fracture Toughness, Ansys