Mechanical properties of glass polymer multilayer composite

Abstract. The preliminary experimental studies on the comparative behaviour of the deformation processes involved in the failure of a commercial, 0.3 mm thick, 18 mm diameter soda–lime–silica glass disks (G) and multilayered glass disk–epoxy (GE) as well as glass disk–epoxy–E-glass fabric (GEF) composite structures are reported. The failure tests were conducted in a biaxial flexure at room temperature. The epoxy was a commercial resin and the E-glass fabric was also commercially obtained as a two-dimensional weave of E-glass fibres to an area density of about 242 g
.The multilayered structures were developed by alternate placement of the
glass and reinforcing layers by a hand lay-up technique followed by lamination at an appropriate temperature and pressure. Depending on the number of layers the volume fraction of reinforcement could be varied from about 0.20 for the GE system to about 0.50 for the GEF system. It was observed that the specific failure load
(load per unit thickness) was enhanced from a value of about 60 N/mm obtained for the glass to a maximum value of about 100 N/mm for the GE composites and to a maximum of about 70 N/mm for the GEF composite system. Similarly, the displacements at failure measured with a linear variable differential transformer
(LVDT) were also found to be a strongly sensitive function of the type of reinforcement (GE or GEF) as well as the number of layers.
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