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Interlaminar shear behavior of basalt FRP and hybrid FRP laminates

Article  in  Journal of Composite Materials · May 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0021998315587132

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FRP and hybrid FRP laminates DOI: 10.1177/0021998315587132
jcm.sagepub.com

Xin Wang1,2, Xing Zhao1, Zhishen Wu1,2, Zhongguo Zhu3 and

Zihao Wang2

Abstract
This paper focuses on the interlaminar shear behavior of basalt fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates impregnated
with epoxy and vinyl ester resins as well as hybrid basalt and carbon FRP laminates. Meanwhile, the interlaminar shear
behavior of carbon and E-glass FRP laminates was also studied for comparison. The experiments were conducted
according to the ASTM-D-2344 standard, and the failure modes, load–deformation (L–D) relationships, and interlaminar
shear stress to normalized deformation relationships of various FRP laminates were analyzed. The differences in inter-
laminar shear behavior among different fibers and resins were identified. The fracture surfaces of the laminate specimens
with different fibers were examined by scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, the hybrid effect on interlaminar
shear behavior was discussed and the interlaminar shear strength was predicted based on above analysis. The results
show that the L–D relationships of FRP laminates can be classified into three types, which are determined by the
interlaminar shear strength between fiber layers and the resin as well as by the failure modes. The interlaminar shear
strength of basalt FRP with vinyl ester resin is higher than that of the glass FRP but less than that of the carbon FRP. The
adoption of epoxy resin and the hybridization of basalt and carbon fibers can enhance the interlaminar shear strength of
basalt FRP. In addition, the scanning electron microscopy images of fracture surfaces of the laminate specimens confirm
the differences of interlaminar behavior of various composites. The hybrid effect on the interlaminar shear behavior is
reflected in the integration of both advantages of basalt FRP and carbon FRP in the interlaminar shear stress to nominal
deformation relationship, which results in both higher interlaminar shear strength at the cracking and the final stages.
Finally, the interlaminar shear strength of different FRP laminates can be accurately predicted by the proposed model.

Keywords
Interlaminar shear behavior, basalt fiber-reinforced polymer, hybrid effect

Introduction layered laminates,3–5 the layered FRP components are

Due to their superior mechanical and chemical per- still used in major applications due to their convenience
formance in comparison to conventional metal mater- of design, ease of manufacturing and cost savings.
ials, Eber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have
been widely used for decades in many industrial appli-
cations, such as aerospace, sporting goods and civil
1
engineering. One of the most common styles of FRP National and Local Unified Engineering Research Center for Basalt Fiber
Production and Application Technology, International Institute for Urban
is the layered component manufactured by unidirec-
Systems Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
tional or bidirectional fiber sheets. For this type of 2
Key Laboratory of C & PC Structures, Ministry of Education, Southeast
FRP component, the interlaminar shear strength University, Nanjing, China
3
(ILSS) is usually an important design factor due to Composites Division, Jiangsu Green Materials Valley New Material T&D
relatively weaker interfaces among the layers of sheets Co., Ltd, Nanjing, China
compared to the interfaces of fibers and resin in the
Corresponding author:
plane of the laminate.1–3 Although 3D textile FRP Zhishen Wu, International Institute for Urban Systems Engineering,
members were invented and developed to overcome Southeast University, 2# Sipailou, Nanjing 210096, China.
the shortcomings of the weaker interfaces of FRP Email: zswu@seu.edu.cn

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Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the interlami- stationary glass Eber mats, the interlaminar shear
nar shear behavior of FRP composites is of great behavior was obviously enhanced.2,15–18 Selmy
importance for many applications. Aside from conven- et al.20,21 studied the variability in the tensile, flexural,
tional carbon FRP (CFRP) and glass FRP (GFRP) in-plane shear, and interlaminar shear properties of
composites, the recently developed basalt FRP unidirectional glass fiber/random glass fiber/epoxy
(BFRP) composites have been gradually adopted in dif- hybrid and non-hybrid composite laminates. They
ferent applications, including bridge deck or girder pro- found that hybrid composites have higher ILSS than
files and bars/tendons for structural internal or external random composites, and the failure location of the
reinforcement.6–9 The advantages of BFRP mainly lie hybrid laminates depends on not only the strength of
in its superior integrated mechanical and chemical per- the interface but also on the strength of the hybrid
formance and environmental friendly properties composite constituents.
because the basalt fibers are produced directly from Although there are a series of studies on the inter-
naturally occurring molten volcanic rocks. Compared laminar shear properties of CFRP, GFRP and their
to GFRP composites, BFRP not only possesses a hybrid FRP composites, very limited information is
higher strength and modulus at a similar cost but also available for newly developed BFRP composites.
offers greater chemical stability. In addition, the super- Thus, this paper will address the interlaminar shear
ior creep behavior of BFRP allows it to be used more properties of BFRP layered composites. The CFRP
efficiently in prestressing applications than GFRP.6 and GFRP are also tested for comparison under the
Compared to CFRP, BFRP possesses a very similar same conditions. Furthermore, the interlaminar shear
high temperature working ability at a lower cost, thus properties of hybrid basalt and carbon FRP were also
making BFRP a strong competitor in some applica- investigated to study their hybrid effect. In addition, it
tions.7–9 In addition, the hybridization of fibers with was shown in previous studies that the mechanical
different characteristics is commonly used for designing properties of FRP composites are strongly dependent
composite structures to achieve ductility or stiffness on the Eber–matrix interface.12,22 Thus, two types of
requirements. Thus, because of the promising BFRP matrices, epoxy and vinyl ester resins were taken into
and potential hybrid applications, an investigation of account in the study.
the interlaminar shear behavior of BFRP and hybrid
FRP layered laminates is the emphasis of the current
research. Experimental program
Numerous studies have been conducted to evaluate
the interlaminar shear behavior of conventional CFRP
Materials
and GFRP composites.2,10–18,19 Previous researches The unidirectional fiber sheets used in the experiment
have mainly focused on the impact factors and are shown in Figure 1. The basalt fiber, carbon fiber
enhancement of the ILSS for designed composites and and E-glass fiber sheets were provided by Jiangsu GMV
concluded that the surface state is the most critical Co., Ltd China, Toray Industries, Inc. Japan, and Jushi
factor for controlling the ILSS of CFRP and GFRP, Group Co., Ltd China, respectively. The measured
while the influences of different fibers were also areal density of each sheet was 289.03 g/m2, 323.97 g/
observed.10–14 Furthermore, the ILSS can obviously m2 and 507.92 g/m2. The basic mechanical properties of
be enhanced by resin modification and hybridization. the above fibers sheets provided by the manufactures
For instance, through the injection of multiwalled are listed in Table 1. Two types of matrices were used in
carbon nanotube (MWCNT)–epoxy suspensions into this study: epoxy resin and vinyl ester resin. The

Figure 1. The unidirectional fiber sheets: (a) basalt fiber sheet; (b) carbon fiber sheet; (c) E-glass fiber sheet.

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Wang et al. 3

Table 1. The mechanical properties of the fiber sheets and the resins.

Tensile strength, Elastic modulus, Failure Nominal

Types fu (MPa) E (GPa) elongation, "u (%) thickness (mm)

Basalt fiber sheet 2100 91 2.30 1.09

Carbon fiber sheet 3400 230 1.48 1.80
Glass fiber sheet 1700 75 2.3 1.92
Epoxy resin (the standard deviation) 79(3.9) 3.0(0.24) 5.4(1.9) –
Vinyl ester (the standard deviation) 56(3.5) 2.8(0.19) 2.1(0.07) –

Figure 2. The schematic illustration of the molding of laminates.

matrices were an epoxy resin WSR 9804 A/B from laminates were cooled down to room temperature and
Wuxi Resin Factory Of Bluestar New Chemical cut into the designed sample size. The specimen sizes
Materials Co., Ltd and a vinyl ester resin IMPACT were determined by the ASTM-D-2344 standard, which
9120-70 from Reichhold Co., Ltd, respectively. The recommends that the width-to-thickness ratio and
mechanical properties of the above resins were tested length-to-thickness ratio of specimens are two and six,
according to the ASTM D638-2003 standard,23 and the respectively. The prepared specimens are shown in
results are shown in Table 1. Figure 3, in which the first letter represents the abbre-
viation of the type of fibers, and the last letter repre-
sents the type of resin. BCV stands for the hybrid FRP
Specimen preparation of basalt and carbon fiber sheets with vinyl ester resin.
The FRP laminates were prepared by hand lay-up The thickness of each specimen was measured by a
assisted with compression molding as shown in Vernier caliper, and the mass was measured using a
Figure 2. The layers of fiber sheets were first impreg- balance with a precision of 0.001 g. Based on these
nated in the corresponding resin and then layered up in measurements, the converted density and fiber volume
a flat-bottomed steel mould. For all the specimens, the fraction are listed in Table 2. The average fiber volume
FRP laminates consisted of 21 layers of impregnated fractions for all specimens were approximately 72%,
fiber sheets. Due to the different thickness of the fiber with a coefficient of variation of less than 5%. For
sheets, the final thickness of the FRP laminates differs each type of FRP laminate, five specimens were pre-
according to the types of sheets. For the hybrid FRP pared and tested to obtain reliable results.
laminates, 11 layers of basalt fiber sheets and 10 layers
of carbon fiber sheets were alternately stacked, with the
bottom and top surface layers being basalt fiber sheets.
Test setup and measurement
After the layers of sheets reached the design require- The short beam shear (three-point bending) test of the
ment, the upper steel mould was compressed on the prepared specimens was conducted on an SANS uni-
layered sheets to eliminate excess resin. The fiber resin versal testing machine with a capacity of 300 kN. The
fraction was constantly controlled by adjusting the loading nose and support cylinders had diameters of
compression force. To accelerate hardening of the 6.00 mm and 3.00 mm, respectively, as shown in
resin, the mould was heated up to 120 C for vinyl Figure 4. The span-to-thickness ratio in the short
ester resin and 180 C for epoxy resin to accelerate beam shear test was set to four. The loading rate was
hardening of resin. After curing for 1 h, the FRP 1 mm/min by deformation control. The load and

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Figure 3. Specimen configurations of FRP laminates: (a) BE; (b) BV; (c) BCV; (d) CV; (e) GV.

Table 2. Parameters of FRP and hybrid FRP laminates.

Measured Fiber volume Thickness Width Length

Specimens Fiber sheet type Matrix type Layers density fraction (%) (mm) (mm) (mm)

BV Basalt fiber Vinyl ester 21 1.96 67.67 3.33 6.66 19.98

BE Basalt fiber Epoxy 21 1.95 76.24 3.48 6.96 20.88
CV Carbon fiber Vinyl ester 21 1.66 70.39 5.13 10.26 30.78
GV E-glass fiber Vinyl ester 21 1.51 73.97 5.95 11.90 35.70
BCV Hybrid basalt/carbon fiber Vinyl ester 21 (10/11) 1.95 73.43 4.64 9.28 27.84

the specimen, or (3) flexural failure occurs. Following

the ASTM D 2344 standard,24 the ILSS can be calcu-
lated by equation (1), derived from the classical beam
relationship

3Ps
Fsbs ¼ ð1Þ
4bh

where Fsbs is the short-beam interlaminar shear strength

(MPa), Ps is the maximum load observed during the
test (N), b is the measured specimen width (mm), and
h ¼ measured specimen thickness (mm). It is worth
noting that the hybrid composites are simplified as
the composites of uniformed layers with the equivalent
fiber elastic modulus of 1.74  105 MPa, which repre-
Figure 4. Test setup. sents the modulus of hybrid carbon and basalt fiber
layers. Thus, the ILSS of the hybrid composites can
be also calculated by equation (1) for the comparison
among the different laminates.
deformation of the specimen were recorded by the load After short beam shear tests, the fracture surfaces of
cell and the extensometer in the machine. The test selected mid-plane of the laminate specimens of differ-
would be terminated by any of the following conditions ent fibers were examined by a JEOL 6501 scanning
according to the ASTM D 2344 standard:24 (1) a load electron microscopy (SEM). The surfaces were coated
drop of more than 30% after peak load occurs, (2) the with a thin platinum layer in a JEOL JFC-1600 sputter
vertical deformation exceeds the nominal thickness of coater.

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Wang et al. 5

Results and discussions type of failure mode can still reflect the ILSS because
the obvious mid-plane interlaminar cracking and fail-
Failure modes ure can be observed as described in the ASTM D 2344
The representative failure modes of different FRP standard.24
laminates are shown in Figure 5. In Figure 5, obvious
interlaminar cracks among the different layers of lamin-
ates are observed. During the loading, it was observed
Load–displacement curves
that in general, the cracks appeared first near the neu- The load–displacement (L–D) curves of the different
tral surface at the side of the specimens, then occurred types of FRP laminates are shown in Figure 7. It can
continuously between the other layers and gradually be seen that for the same type of FRP, the different
stretched to the mid-span. The deformation of the spe- specimens show similar configurations of load–dis-
cimens before interlaminar cracking was very limited. placement curves, whereas the specimens of the differ-
According to the ASTM D 2344 standard,24 three ent types of FRP exhibit obviously different
types of failure modes for short beam test can be iden- characteristics in their configuration. Comparing the
tified (as shown in Figure 6), in which the flexural fail- L–D curves of Figure 7(a) and (b), for the same type
ure was controlled by the tensile strength or local of basalt fiber sheet, the specimens display different
buckling of the layers in the edge instead of interlami- L–D characteristics due to the different resins. It can
nar failure. Thus, flexural failure cannot determine the be seen that although the interlaminar cracking load of
interlaminar shear properties. Above, the described BV is lower than that of BE, BV can sustain the load
failure modes of BV, BE, CV and BCV exactly conform after cracking and carry a higher load afterward.
to the interlayer shear in Figure 6(a), and this can be Conversely, BE can only maintain loads after initial
regarded as a valid failure to evaluate interlaminar interlaminar cracking. This phenomenon indicates
shear properties. Slightly different from the above spe- that the interlaminar behaviors of the basalt fiber
cimens, partial interlaminar cracks at the side and sheet with epoxy and vinyl ester resins are different.
major cracks at the middle span were observed for The interlaminar shear cracking of BV mainly occurs
the failure mode of GV. An inelastic deformation was in a discontinuous manner, which cannot induce con-
also found at the ultimate stage of loading. Thus, the tinuous cracking and results in an increased load carry-
failure mode of GV was a combined failure with inter- ing ability. The interfacial bonding between basalt
laminar shear and inelastic deformation. However, this fibers and epoxy resin should be higher than that

Figure 5. Interlaminar failures of different FRP laminates: (a) BE; (b) BV; (c) BCV; (d) CV; (e) GV.

Figure 6. Typical failure modes in the short beam test recommended in ASTM D 2344: (a) interlayer shear; (b) flexure; (c) inelastic
deformation.

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between basalt fibers and vinyl ester resin. However, The load–displacement curves of GV exhibit differ-
due to a high bonding strength, the interlaminar shear ent characteristics compared to the curves of the other
cracking propagates more sufficiently after loads exceed FRP laminates, which do not have obvious load drops
the interlaminar shear stress limit, which results in a after initial interlaminar shear cracking. This phenom-
continuous shear cracking and load sustaining instead enon corresponds to the failure mode of inelastic
of carrying higher loads. deformation and indicates that the interlaminar shear
The load–displacement curves of CV also display a cracking in the GV laminates was more localized and
high interlaminar cracking load and maintaining load uniformly distributed. It also demonstrates that the
afterward, which are similar to those of BE. The differ- ILSS between glass fibers and vinyl ester resin is rela-
ence lies in the load drop amplitude after reaching the tively weak compared to the others.
interlaminar cracking load, which may be caused by a
higher bonding strength between carbon fibers and Interlaminar shear stress-normalized deformation
vinyl ester resin than that between basalt fibers and
relationship
epoxy resin. The L–D curves of BCV show similar char-
acteristics to those of BV instead of CV, which indicates Due to the difference in the specimen dimensions, the
that the L–D behavior of hybrid B/CFRP is still con- L–D curves of each type of FRP composite can only
trolled by the relatively weaker ILSS between basalt reflect the characteristics of the load-carrying behavior
fibers and vinyl ester resin. with respect to displacement and cannot be used to

Figure 7. Load-displacement curves of the different types of FRP laminates: (a) BE; (b)BV; (c)BCV; (d)CV; (e)GV.

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Wang et al. 7

Figure 8. Interlaminar shear stress-displacement/thickness curves.

ILSS: interlaminar shear strength.

compare the ILSS among different FRP laminates. Table 3. Shear deformation stiffness of the different FRP
Thus, focusing on the most critical position for inter- laminates.
laminar shear stress, the loads on the specimens can be
Specimens BE BV BCV CV GV
converted into interlaminar shear stresses by equa-
tion(1), and the normalized deformation by displace- 1 295 298 315 328 253
ment/thickness was adopted to represent the 2 300 320 330 355 276
deformation of each type of specimen. 3 278 295 336 376 253
Because the same type of FRP laminate exhibits 4 275 284 340 357 225
similar load–displacement curves, as shown in 5 299 290 319 370 250
Figure 7, the representative curve approaching the Mean (MPa) 289 297 328 357 251
average values for each type of FRP laminate was
Standard deviation (MPa) 12 14 11 19 18
selected to compare the relationship between interlami-
COV (%) 4 5 3 5 7
nar shear stress and normalized deformation, as shown
in Figure 8.
It can be seen from Figure 8 that all types of FRP
laminates exhibit similar slopes of interlaminar shear mainly determined by the shear deformation of the
stress to normalized deformation before the shear resin layer but it is also affected by the tensile modulus
stress reaches the first peak. This slope can represent influence of different fibers. The BFRP laminates with
the shear deformation stiffness of each type of FRP the two types of resins also do not exhibit obvious
laminate, which can be calculated by the slope differences in shear stiffness. This is due to the similar
between 20% and 50% of the cracking shear stress, shear properties of these two types of resins, as indi-
referred to as the determination of the tensile elastic cated in Table 1.
modulus of FRP. The results are shown in Table 3. The differences induced by the types of FRP can be
For each type of fiber, relatively stable values can be reflected only in the magnitudes of the interlaminar
found for the average shear deformation stiffness. It cracking shear stress, among which CFRP exhibits
can be seen that the shear deformation stiffness is the highest value, followed by BFRP/CFRP with
associated with the tensile modulus of each type of vinyl ester resin, BFRP with epoxy and BFRP with
fiber. The CV shows highest shear deformation stiff- vinyl ester. The lowest interlaminar cracking shear
ness, followed by BV and GV. BCV shows moderate stress is observed for GFRP. It is apparent that
shear deformation stiffness, between that of CV and carbon fiber laminates have the strongest bonding
BV. However, the difference in shear deformation with vinyl ester resin, resulting in the highest interlami-
stiffness among those types of FRP is much smaller nar shear cracking stress among all types of the FRP
than the difference in the tensile modulus of each fiber. laminates. Basalt fiber laminates with epoxy resin exhi-
Thus, the shear deformation stiffness should be bit relatively higher bonding performance than those

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with vinyl ester resin, indicating that with a higher Table 4. ILSS at cracking stage.
bonding greater compatibility between basalt fibers
ILSS for cracking shear stress (MPa)
and epoxy resin can be realized. Nevertheless, after
interlaminar cracking, the BFRP with vinyl ester resin Specimens BE BV BCV CV GV
can not only maintain the shear stress but can also
carry an increased stress with respect to normalized 1 35.8 25.7 35.1 48.0 25.8
deformation. The BFRP with vinyl ester resin also exhi- 2 33.4 25.8 35.4 50.5 26.9
bits a second peak interlaminar shear stress when the 3 36.1 26.0 36.9 49.2 28.6
normalized deformation is close to 1, which is even 4 35.6 25.0 35.6 47.5 27.8
larger than the value of the first peak shear stress. In 5 37.4 25.0 37.4 49.6 27.1
contrast, although BFRP with epoxy resin exhibits a Mean (MPa) 35.7 25.5 36.1 48.9 19.1
higher interlaminar cracking shear stress compared to Standard 1.4 0.5 1.0 1.2 1.0
BFRP with vinyl ester resin, the shear stress can only be deviation (MPa)
maintained through further enhancement to a larger COV (%) 4.0 1.8 2.8 2.4 5.1
peak stress. The different characteristics of BFRP
with the different resins indicate that bonding between
fibers and resins improves the interlaminar cracking
shear stress and is prone to cause continuous interlami- Table 5. ILSS at the final stage.
nar cracking, resulting in a loss of shear stiffness at the
ILSS for shear stress at final stage (MPa)
post-cracking stage. For hybrid BFRP/CFRP with
vinyl ester resin, the interlaminar cracking shear stress Specimens BE BV BCV CV GV
has been obviously improved, and this can be inter-
preted as being due to the higher modulus of the 1 33.8 38.6 41.0 42.9 25.8
carbon fiber sheets and larger interlaminar shear stres- 2 35.3 38.4 42.8 46.4 26.8
ses being shared by the carbon fibers, which relieve the 3 33.3 38.3 45.9 47.0 28.6
interlaminar stresses between basalt fibers and the resin. 4 34.1 39.3 44.9 38.2 27.8
As a result, the overall interlaminar cracking stress of 5 37.3 37.1 44.0 40.8 27.1
hybrid BFRP/CFRP can be improved in comparison to Mean (MPa) 34.8 38.3 43.7 43.0 27.2
BFRP. After cracking, hybrid BFRP/CFRP exhibits a Standard 1.6 0.8 1.9 3.7 1.0
stable and increased maintaining stress, similar to deviation (MPa)
BFRP, which demonstrates that the discontinuous COV (%) 4.6 2.1 4.4 8.7 3.7
interlaminar cracking controls the post-cracking
ILSS: interlaminar shear strength.
behavior.
GFRP laminates exhibit the lowest interlaminar
shear cracking stress, and the relationship between The most stable values are found for the BV and CV
shear stress and normalized deformation shows differ- FRP laminates. For the ILSS at the final stage, the
ent characteristics compared to the other types of FRP values are less stable than those of the first peak
laminates. When the stress is approaching the interla- shear stress, which indicate that the stress distribution
minar shear cracking stress, the interlaminar cracks at the final stage is complex with interlaminar shear,
occur gradually, resulting in a gradual decreasing fluc- compression and the bending effect. It should be men-
tuation of shear stress. No obvious shear stress drop tioned that the maximum load in this test was some-
could be observed. Due to the gradual crack propaga- times achieved at the final stage and was usually
tion, the post-cracking shear stress could still increase accompanied by a large deformation. Moreover, the
similar to the curve of the BFRP laminate with vinyl second peak load was mainly caused by a bending
ester resin. effect. For applicability to structure shear designing, it
is more suitable to calculate the ILSS by the interlami-
nar cracking shear stress and take the shear stress at
Interlaminar shear strength final stage as a safety factor.
According to equation (1), the ILSS corresponding to The comparison of the ILSS between cracking and
the interlaminar cracking shear stress and the shear the final stage of the different types of FRP laminates is
stress at the final stage of each type of FRP laminate shown in Figure 9. It is shown that BFRP with epoxy
are listed in Tables 4 and 5, respectively. resin and CFRP with vinyl ester resin show higher first
It can be seen that the ILSS of the interlaminar peak shear stresses than final stage shear stresses, which
cracking shear stress of the different types of FRP exhi- are induced by the high ILSS between the fiber layers
bits relatively stable values with CVs all lower than 5%. and resins, as interpreted above. For the rest of the

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Wang et al. 9

Figure 9. ILSS comparison of different specimens at cracking stage and at the final stage.
ILSS: interlaminar shear strength.

Figure 10. Fracture surface of different fibers reinforced vinyl ester composites: (a) BV; (b) CV; (c) GV.

FRP laminates, the maximum shear stresses are rela- significantly different interface microstructure as
tively larger than the first peak shear stresses. The ratio shown in the SEM micrographs. BV in Figure 10(a)
of the final stage to the first peak shear stresses is 1.42 and CV in Figure 10(b) composites do not display a
for GFRP, 1.50 for BFRP and 1.24 for BFRP/CFRP. direct matrix debonding phenomenon on the fiber sur-
face. A thin layer of matrix covering the fiber surface is
observed, which indicates the resin adhesion. In fact,
SEM micrographs of fracture surface
the fracture failure due to resin cracking and deform-
To understand the interlaminar behavior of different ation occurs basically within the matrix nearby the fiber
fibers reinforced vinyl ester composites, the fracture surface, i.e. interlaminar region. Primarily, the fracture
surfaces of the laminate specimens after tests were micro-mechanism can be regarded as a significant
examined by SEM. SEM photomicrographs of selected deformation of the resin before fracture, which is the
mid-plane fracture surfaces of different fiber reinforced characteristic of toughened composites.25 In compari-
composite are shown in Figure 10. During short beam son, the fracture micro-mechanism of GV composites
testing, the primary failure mode is a delamination primarily occurs as interfacial debonding of the matrix
along the mid-plane, i.e. shear fracture occurs in the from the fibers.18 The SEM in Figure 10(c) apparently
matrix-dominated interface area between plies. shows the smooth and clean surface of fibers, which is
All laminate specimens with different fibers caused by relatively weak adhesion. The differences in
can be distinguished by the development of a fracture mechanisms shown by the SEM micrographs

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10 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

also demonstrate the differences in ILSSs at cracking

stage of different types of specimens is controlled by
different fracture mechanisms.
It should be noted that the fracture surface of BV
(Figure 10(a)) exhibits distinct straight streaks along
the inclined direction of longitudinal fibers which is
caused by transversal braided wires.2 The similar phe-
nomenon is not observed in the fracture interfaces of
CV and GV.27 Above facts indicate that the BV not
only owns superior bonding between basalt fibers and
resin, but also allows interfacial resin layer deform suf-
ficiently up to failure. For CV and GV specimens, the
fracture is only induced by the interfacial debonding
between fibers and resin. Figure 11. The relationship between ILSS with elastic modulus
of fibers.
ILSS: interlaminar shear strength.
Hybrid effect discussion
The hybrid effect on the ILSS can be interpreted by
comparing the BV, BCV and CV FRP laminates. It associated with the types of fibers meanwhile the ILSS
can be seen that the ILSS of hybrid BFRP/CFRP is mainly related to the interlaminar deformation and
were 42% and 14% higher than those of BFRP, cor- interface bonding ability of FRP among the interface of
responding to first peak stress and maximum stress, different fiber layers. The high fiber stiffness will lead to
respectively. Compared to CFRP, the ILSS of hybrid small deformation of the specimen and small strain of
BFRP/CFRP reach 73% and89 % of those of CFRP the interlaminar layers and interface under the same
laminates. From the above comparison, it is indicated level of load. This mechanism leads to the higher
that the hybridization of basalt and carbon fiber sheets values of ILSS be obtained with higher modulus of
integrates the positive properties of both FRP lamin- fibers. The properties of different fibers are shown in
ates. The higher ILSS between the carbon fibers and Table 5 and the relationships of ILSS and modulus of
resin enhances the first-peak shear stress of hybrid fibers are shown in Figure 11. It is obviously seen that
BFRP/CFRP, and the discontinuous interlaminar the linear regression between ILSS and elastic modulus
cracking of BFRP confers an increase in the load-car- of fibers achieves high accuracy with the correlation
rying ability after initial cracking along the interlaminar coefficients larger than 0.99. Therefore, the prediction
position. Thus, through hybridization, a high perform- equation of ILSS is expressed by the form of equation
ance can be obtained. (2), in which the ILSS is determined by the combination
The positive hybrid effect in the interlaminar shear of weighted elastic modulus of fibers and a constant. To
behavior is generated by the difference in modulus determine the weighting factors for each type of fibers,
between basalt and carbon fibers. The layer of basalt a least square method is adopted for regression
fibers maintains lower stress, whereas the carbon fiber
layer resists higher stress. For a homogeneous FRP, the Fpred ¼ Ef wef þ C ð2Þ
initiated and progressive cracks in the resins would
affect the simultaneous stressing. In contrast to this where ILSSpred is the prediction value of ILSS, MPa. Ef
type of failure, the low-stress fibers in hybrid FRP is the elastic modulus of fibers, GPa. wef is the weight-
sheets can prevent the continuous fracture of high- ing factors for elastic modulus of fibers. C is a constant.
stress fibers and interfaces after the partial damage to By substituting the data in Tables 4 and 5 into equa-
the resins. The similar phenomenon of the hybrid effect tion (2), the weighting factors of wef, wfm and C are
by basalt and carbon fibers was also observed in the regressed to be 1.77  104 and 6.56, respectively.
tensile test on hybrid carbon and glass/basalt FRP
sheets at high temperatures19 and in fatigue testing.29
Conclusions
Prediction of interlaminar shear strength at This paper investigated the interlaminar shear behavior
of BFRP and the related hybrid FRP composites by
cracking stage
short beam shear tests. The load–displacement relation-
To predict the ILSS at cracking stage of different FRP ship, the shear stress to nominal displacement and the
laminates, the relationship of ILSS and the types of hybrid effect on shear behavior were comprehensively
fibers is investigated. As discussed above, the ILSS is discussed. The major conclusions are as follows:

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Wang et al. 11

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Conflict of interest in an epoxy matrix by means of single Eber pull-out test.
Compos Sci Technol 2001; 61: 599–605.
None declared. 14. Ramanathan T, Bismarck A, Schulz E, et al.
Investigation of the influence of surface-activated
Funding carbon Ebers on debonding energy and friction
stress in polymer-matrix composites by the micro-
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports
indentation technique. Compos Sci Technol 2001; 61:
from the National Key Basic Research Program of China
(No. 2012CB026200), the National Science Foundation of 2511–2518.
China (No. 51378109), and the Transportation Science and 15. Wang BC, et al. Investigation on some matrix-dominated
Technology Project of Jiangsu Province (No. 2014Y01) and properties of hybrid multiscale composites based on
acknowledge Jiangsu Green Materials Valley New Material carbon fiber/carbon nanotube modified epoxy. J Appl
T&D Co., Ltd for providing fiber sheets. Polym Sci 2013; 128: 990–996.
16. Liu Z, Zhao F and Jones FR. Optimising the interfacial
response of glass fibre composites with a functional nano-
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