Experimental and numerical investigation of heterogeneous strain fields in intralayer hybrid composites with aramid-carbon reinforcement

This research aims to analyze the elastic behavior of intralayer hybrid composites that consist of an epoxy matrix and aramid-carbon reinforcement. The contrast in stiffness between the aramid and carbon fibers leads to highly heterogeneous distributions of strains at the mesoscopic level. Therefore, our main objective is to investigate the strain fields at the mesoscopic level experimentally and numerically. We performed measurements using the digital image correlation (DIC) method, while the numerical model was built using a two-scale approach involving the finite element method (FEM). Good agreement was observed between the experimental and numerical results.