Experimental analysis of the linear and nonlinear behaviour of composites with delaminations

An analysis of the linear and nonlinear vibration responses of composites with delaminations is presented. The effect of delamination size on the linear and nonlinear vibration response is studied. The composite material used in this paper is a glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) having delaminations at the plies interfaces. The experimental procedure consists in inducing the specimen on its resonance flexural modes with different excitation levels (amplitudes) for six bending modes and for each delamination length. The presence of the nonlinearity introduced by the delamination was clearly identified by the variation of natural frequencies for increasing excitation levels. Then, nonlinear elastic parameters for progressive delamination length were determined and discussed for the first six bending modes. The linear and the nonlinear elastic parameters were compared in their sensitive modes.