Pseudo‐ductility behavior of carbon/glass hybrid composites with unidirectionally arrayed chopped strands: Experimental and numerical research

Abstract Although lightweight fiber‐reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are widely used in various engineering fields due to their high specific strength and modulus, the mutual exclusion of strength and toughness is one of the bottlenecks in the field of FRP design because of the inherent brittleness of fiber themselves. In this research, discontinuous fiber structures with vertical and bi‐angled slits are introduced into the thin‐ply carbon fiber prepreg. The fracture energy and delamination degree of the center carbon fiber layer could be controlled by adjusting the structural parameters to design the pseudo‐ductility of carbon/glass ( C / G ) hybrid laminates and obtain the higher pseudo‐yield stress. The hybrid specimens with 20 mm slits exhibit obvious pseudo‐ductility, and the pseudo‐ductility strain increases as the C / G ratio increases, while the plateau stress decreases. The larger slit distance provides sufficient propagation space for the delamination damage, which dissipates tensile energy and results in a smoother plateau area of the stress–strain curve. The stress–strain curve of the specimen with a smaller slit exhibits a noticeable rapid load decrease caused by the transient propagation of delamination damage. The peak stress of hybrid laminate with bi‐angled slits shows the highest pseudo‐yield stress. The present finite element model successfully analyzed the pseudo‐ductile damage propagation of C / G hybrid laminates with vertical slits, and the results are in good agreement with the experiments. Highlights Revealed the pseudo‐ductility behavior of carbon/glass hybrid composites. The pseudo‐ductility of carbon/glass hybrid composites is controllable. The pseudo‐ductility strain increases with the increase of C / G ratio.