A Technique for Determining the Elastic and Dissipative Properties of Orthotropic Composites in Shear

A new method is presented for the characterization of three principal complex shear moduli of linear viscoelastic orthotropic materials, which is based on the measurement of complex torsional vibration frequencies of three rods of rectangular cross section. The rod-type test specimens are cut out from a composite plate along the principal material axes in the reinforcement plane. It is shown that the torsional stiffness of an elastic rod can be calculated not only by means of the Saint-Venant torsion theory, but also using a relationship obtained from the Reissner-Mindlin theory of plates. The transfer to a viscoelastic model of the material with complex moduli is realized with the help of the correspondence principle. By applying a numerical sensitivity analysis of natural frequencies to the shear moduli, the advisable width-to-thickness ratios of the specimens are found. As an illustration of data processing, the dynamic shear moduli and the loss factors for a GFRP fabric with an epoxy matrix are calculated. A comparison of the method offered with some known static and dynamic methods for determining the shear moduli of orthotropic materials is given.