The Elastic Moduli of Thick Composites

Abstract

Thick composites are in use in critical applications and are proposed for still others. It is important to measure the elastic moduli of thick composites for two reasons: (1) for design data on stiffness, and (2) for prediction of feasible wave paths for ultrasonic waves for NDE. Previously only relatively thin composites of relatively simple symmetries have been measured for their elastic moduli. Now, it is becoming necessary to measure thick composites of feasible engineering lay-ups. These generally provide the complexity of orthorhombic symmetry locally in a specimen combined with curvature in the gross structure. In this work, specimens cut from thick structures will be treated in the same way as crystals to measure the elastic moduli by means of ultrasonic wave velocities. Results on one structure will be presented. Difficulties will be analyzed. THEORY