Effect of fibre orientation on mechanical properties of carbon fibre composites

The research aims to investigate the carbon fibre composite laminate for effect of their layer configuration including their number and relative orientation of fibre angles on their mechanical properties and its consistency with the results obtained from simulated data using finite element analysis (FEA) on mechanical properties. The laminate composite with four types of fiber layer orientations were prepared using total eight layers including unidirectional and cross ply layers with different orientations. The flexural properties of the samples were evaluated. The results of experiments found consistent with the simulated data and it indicates that the fibre orientations and its layer sequence influence the characteristics of laminate composites. The composite with 0 degrees orientated unidirectional fibre layers shows maximum flexural strength. The flexural strain is higher for laminate composite having layers with cross plies (45 degrees fibre orientations). The different position of cross ply in the sequence shows variations in flexural properties because the typical nature of the three point bending flexural test of laminate composite where top side layers are under compression and bottom side layers are under tension.