Compressive performance of unidirectional (UD) fibre-reinforced composites is essentialwhen designing large composite structures loaded in bending, such as wind turbine blades.This article looks at a study that deals with compression tests of 5 mm thick pultrudedcarbon fibre profiles and aims to develop a repeatable and representative method.

Based on experimental observations and results, for instance, from Ferguson et al. [1], constantwidth compression specimens exhibit an incorrect failure mode at the end of the gripping part.The waisted test sample is found to carry a higher load even though the final failure is stillobserved outside the gauge section. This failure now occurs in the waisted region, under the tabs,or in the junction with the grips. The failure mechanism exhibits kink-band and splitting, leading tothe final failure of the test specimen. As it is not in the gauge area of the sample, this still does notrepresent the full potential of the compressive load performance of the pultruded profiles.

This article appeared in the January 2024 issue of BENCHMARK.