Thermo mechanical behavior of Glass-Kevlar/epoxy hybrid laminates - An Experimental and Theoretical approach

The objective of this research work is to investigate the thermo mechanical behavior of glass-kevlar/epoxy hybrid laminates. Material properties and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), exposed to temperature variation, along the principal directions were measured and characterized as temperature function. A theoretical method was proposed, by applying these characterized properties to the classical lamination theory, to predict the change of CTE for a general laminate. The coefficients of thermal expansion of the laminate were measured and compared with those predicted from the experimental results, it is observed that the proposed method is in good agreement with the experimental result.