A new bending test method of advanced composites

This paper deals with a new bending test method of advanced composites. Although the conventional three- or four-point bending is convenient to obtain a bending strength, it has several disadvantages especially for advanced composites. A newly proposed method is based on a bending by means of axial compression and this method overcomes the above disadvantages. A set of testing devices was designed and machined, and various kinds of composites were tested. It is made clear that the new method is suitable especialy for high performance composites such as T800/epoxy.