Measuring delamination severity of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites during drilling process

Abstract

Glass fiber-reinforced epoxy composites are one of the potential light-weight structural materials used in various engineering applications due to its excellent properties. Drilling is most widely applied for fastening the composite structures; nevertheless, the damage induced by this operation may reduce the component performance drastically. To establish the damage level, delamination is measured quantitatively using digital imaging techniques. In this study, to quantify the delamination severity effectively, a new refined delamination factor (FDR) is proposed and validated using experimental results observed from three-point bend tests (3PT) and modified short beam shear tests. The value of determined refined delamination factor (FDR) is more accurate compared to the calculated conventional (FD) and adjusted (FDA) delamination factors.