Identification of material properties of composite materials

Abstract

Present paper describes the facilities of composite material properties identification technique using specimen vibration tests, genetic algorithms, finite elements analysis and specimen shape optimization. In identification process the elastic constants in a numerical model is updated so that the output from the numerical code fits the results from vibration testing. Main problem analysed in this paper is that Poisson's ratio is the worst determined elastic characteristic due to its low influence on specimen eigenfrequencies. It is shown that it is possible to increase its influence by choosing specific test specimen characteristics (side aspect ratio, orthotropy angle, etc.) via optimization routine. In this paper are presented test results of some experiments wherein glass-epoxy and carbon- epoxy material properties were identified.