Eect of stitching on Mode I strain energy release rate

Gwo-Chung Tsai
*
, Jun-Wei Chen
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National I-Lan University, 260 I-Lan, Taiwan, ROC
Abstract
Stitching advanced graphite/epoxy composites in the through-thickness direction improves the interlaminar fracture toughness.
The Mode I energy release rate of a graphite/epoxy composite, with and without stitching bers, was experimentally determined
using double cantilever beam specimens. The bers employed in this research are not densely stitched. Three dierent bers, namely
Para-Aramid ber, Glass ber, and PAN-based carbon tow ber, were used to study the eect of ber stiness on the strain energy
release rate. The 3-D nite element model combined with the crack closure integral method is employed to obtain the G
I
and G
IC
values. Experimental results were compared with nite element analytical calculations and good agreement was found. The rst
mode of strain energy release rate of stitched specimens is about three to six times that of unstitched specimens depending on the
stiness of the stitched bers.
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Stitching; Finite element method; Delamination; Mode I energy release rate
1. Introduction
Graphite/epoxy composite laminates have very high
in-plane strength and stiness, but they usually exhibit
poor interlaminar strength and energy release rate, and
hence are vulnerable to delamination. Various tech-
niques have been considered to improve the out-of-plane
properties by increasing the resistance to delamination.
Some researches had focused on materials improve-
ments, i.e. on the use of tougher matrices, better ber/
matrix interface or interleaving concepts [13]. Alter-
native approaches to bringing about substantial
improvements in interlaminar fracture toughness of
composite structures require modications of the ber
architecture. Weaving, knitting, and braiding have
shown to achieve considerable enhancement in fracture
toughness and impact properties, but these methods
reduce the proportion of bers along the in-plane
directions and create large resin pockets throughout the
structure, which tends to deteriorate the in-plane prop-
erties. The biggest advantage of stitching compared with
other methods of through-thickness reinforcement is its
versatility. Stitching utilizes traditional materials and
fabrication process using components that can be
manufactured from either a prepreg or perform layup.
To improve the Mode I critical strain energy release
rate, Dranseld, et al. [4] proposed two micro-mechan-
ics-based models for studying the eect of through-
thickness stitching bers in improving the delamination
crack growth resistance of double cantilever beam
(DCB) specimens. They found that the reinforcement
achieved by through-thickness stitching bers improves
signicantly the crack growth resistance, and hence
inhibits or delays extension of delamination. In their
rst model, they assumed that the stitching bers are not
interconnected; while in their second model, they con-
sidered the eect of interconnected stitches. They found
that a large interfacial shear stress and higher stitching
density together with a small stitching thread diameter
are desirable and can maximize the crack growth resis-
tance. Mouritz et al. [10] studied the exural strength
and inter-laminar shear strength of stitched glass-rein-
forced plastic (GRP) laminates. The GRP laminates
were stitched through the thickness with Kevlar thread
in two orientations with a low or high stitching density.
They found that the Mode I inter-laminar fracture
toughness, G
IC
, increased with Kevlar thread in two
orientations, whereas the Mode II toughness, G
IIC
, was
not aected by the stitching bers. The three-point
exural strength and short beam inter-laminar shear
strength of the GRP laminates before impact loading
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gctsai@niu.edu.tw (G.-C. Tsai).
0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2004.02.009
Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19
www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct
were reduced as a result of damage incurred by stitching
bers. Subsequently they concluded that stitching bers
did not enhance the impact damage resistance, the post-
impact exural strength or the inter-laminar shear
strength of the GRP laminates. They also found that the
extent of delamination arising from single or repeated
impacts was slightly higher in stitched laminates. How-
ever, these ndings may not be applicable to other types
of berreinforced polymer composites. Generally, the
DCB specimen [410] was used to determine the Mode I
inter-laminar fracture toughness of lightly stitched
composites. Owing to the higher bending moment at the
crack tip [11], laminates with medium- and high-density
stitches will fail under compressive stresses before
delamination can propagate. The Mode I fracture
toughness of graphite/epoxy laminates containing Kev-
lar stitches with a density of 64 stitches per square inch
obtained by a novel DCB test [12] was about 45 times
that of unstitched specimens.
Most of the abovementioned studies focused on
investigating the eect of stitching ber density on frac-
ture toughness and no eort has yet been made on
exploring the eect of ber stiness on fracture tough-
ness. In this paper, bers of dierent stiness are
employed to examine their eect on the energy release
rate of the stitched composite material. In addition, this
study is the rst attempt to calculate the fracture
toughness of stitched and delaminated composite lami-
nates using the nite element method.
The critical strain energy release rate plays an
important role in determining the initiation and growth
of delamination in composite laminates. Linear elastic
fracture mechanics (LEFM) available at the sharp crack
of the structure can help predict the failure behavior.
LEFM is only applicable for smaller plastic area at the
crack tip and becomes unavailable when the plastic zone
at the crack tip is bigger than that of the crack length.
The Mode I strain energy release rate (G
I
) would be
calculated using theoretical analysis, experimental
method and nite element analysis (FEA) [1315].
Theoretical analysis involves the use of the linear elastic
beam model proposed by Gilman [16]. He employed
the DCB to calculate the G
I
value without considering
the shear stress at the crack tip. Berry [17] proposed the
compliance calibration method for evaluating the rela-
tionship between the critical loading and displacement
observed from the experimental data and for calculating
the critical strain energy release rate. The FEA calcu-
lation can be direct or indirect [18]. Indirect FEA cal-
culation obtains the energy release rate by increasing the
small crack length (Da) twice. In other words, FEA is
rst performed with crack length of a, then it is per-
formed again with crack length of a Da. The results
of both calculations yield the GI. Nevertheless, this
method is more time-consuming. On the other hand,
direct FEA calculation of energy release rate yields the
nodal forces and displacements at the crack tip without
the need of performing the analysis twice. Another ap-
proach is the crack closure integral method proposed by
Irwin [19]. It calculates the energy release rate using the
stress and opening displacement at the crack tip. The 3-
D eight-node non-singular element used by Roeck and
Wahab [14] is adopted in this study to examine the strain
energy release rate.
2. Strain energy release rate of composite laminate
The evaluation of failure behavior using fracture
mechanics can be described by the following parameters:
(1) stress intensity factor, K; (2) strain energy release
rate, G; (3) J-integral, J; and (4) crack tip opening dis-
placement, CTOD. K and G are available in the linear
elastic area of very small plastic zone at the crack tip,
whereas J-integral and CTOD are available in the
elasticplastic area of bigger plastic zone. The failure
behavior of isotropic material is evaluated using K val-
ues; while the delamination behavior of composite
materials is generally examined by obtaining the G
values.
The failure strength of the composite laminate, the
interface strength between the ber and matrix as well as
the strength of the matrix are aected by many factors
such as the sliding and breakage of bers, the crack of
the matrix and the extent of delamination. There are
three major types of failure of composite materials: (1)
inter-laminar fracture; (2) intra-laminar fracture; and (3)
trans-laminar fracture, as shown in Fig. 1. Delamination
propagation is generally thought to be the result of in-
ter-laminar fracture, therefore the strain energy release
rate and critical energy release rate would be used to
evaluate the initiation and propagation of delamination.
3. Compliance calibration method
Grith [19] proposed using the strain energy release
rate to evaluate the failure behavior, and developed the
Fig. 1. (a) Intra-laminar fracture; (b) inter-laminar fracture and (c)
trans-laminar fracture.
2 G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19
energy balance to explain the behavior of crack growth.
He stated that the energy required to get an extra crack
length (da) can be supplied by the structure, meaning
that the reduced strain energy will be equal to the
increment in surface energy with increasing crack length.
The released energy of the unit area during crack growth
is called the strain energy release rate, which is equiva-
lent to the change in strain energy. From the Grith
proposal, the crack propagation conditions for the unit
thickness of the plate are:
d
da
U F W 0 or
d
da
F U
dW
da
1
where a is the crack length, U the elastic energy of unit
thickness of plate, F the work applied by the external
force and W the energy required for crack growth.
Fig. 2 shows an external force P applied onto a
cracked plate with the thickness of B with the corre-
sponding displacement V . When the crack length is in-
creased by da, the displacement is also increased by a
value of dV , thus the work produced by the external
force will be PdV . Eq. (1) can be rewritten as follows:
G
d
da
F U
1
B
P
dV
da
_

dU
t
da
_
2
where B is the thickness of the plate, P the applied force,
U
t
the total elastic energy of the plate and V the dis-
placement at the applied force point.
In elastic deformation range, the displacement V is
proportional to the applied force, V CP, where C is
the compliance of the plate.
Berry [17] applied the relationship between load and
displacement, G
IC
, given as follows:
G
IC

nPd
2ba
3
In the loadingunloading test, given the critical ap-
plied load P
c
, the corresponding displacement, d, and the
corresponded crack length a, the relationship between
the compliance C and the crack length can be found.
Then, the curve representing the linear relationship be-
tween logC and loga is obtained. The slope of the
curve, n, can be directly observed from the curve of
logCloga, and the values of G
IC
in Eq. (3) can then
be calculated.
4. The nite element method
The complicated irregular geometric structure in
engineering problems cannot be easily handled. In the
analysis, the real structures have to be divided into small
elements. The modied Galerkin method and the
boundary conditions are then applied to all of these ele-
ments to obtain the structural behavior. This analytical
method is called the nite element method. The complete
nite element analytical procedures involve pre-process-
ing, solution and post-processing. In this paper, the 3-D
regular brick element is used to performthe nite element
analysis. During the analysis, the very ne mesh at the
crack tip of the 3-D regular brick elements must be built
up, thus incurring longer computing time.
In the nite element analysis [13,14], the crack closure
integral method uses only one calculation to get the
strain energy release rate. The Mode I load is applied to
an innite length of material. Fig. 3 shows the normal
stress, r
y
, at crack tip (y 0), which can also be ex-
pressed as the following formula:
r
y

A
1

x
p A
2
A
3

x
p
4
where A
1
, A
2
, and A
3
are the material constants.
When the crack length, a, grows to the crack length of
a da, with Da being a small increment length, the
crack opening displacement (COD) will approach the
critical crack opening displacement before the crack
growth. Grith [19] proposed that the work needed to
increase the crack length, a, to the longer crack length,
a Da, will be equal to the energy required for the
longer crack length, a Da, to return to the original
Fig. 2. A plate with crack length of a. Fig. 3. Normal stress, r
y
, at the crack tip.
G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19 3
crack length, a. The work, W , can be expressed as the
following form:
W
1
2
_
Da
0
r
y
Da rvrBdr 5
where vr is the COD at the location of r from the crack
tip of crack length, a Da and B the thickness of the
plate.
The energy release rate can be dened as the work
required for the growth of the unit area crack. It can be
expressed as follows:
G
I
lim
Da!0
1
2tD
_
t
0
_
Da
0
w
R
r; yrD r; y dr dy 6
where w
R
r; y is the COD at the location of (r; y) just
behind the crack tip. For general homogeneous mate-
rials with crack, the energy release rate can be obtained
from Eq. (6) when Da approaches zero, but not for
composite materials. Therefore, Eq. (6) is modied with
Da assumed to be constant. Eq. (6) can then be rewritten
as
G
I

1
2tD
_
t
0
_
Da
0
w
R
r; yrD r; y dr dy 7
In this paper, the composite laminate was simulated
by 3-D brick elements, and the ber through the thick-
ness is created by a 2-D link element. The ANSYS [20]
nite element code is used in the nite element analyses.
Fig. 4 shows the 3-D eight node regular element. At the
crack tip, the nodal force at i, j, k, and l can be used to
calculate the energy release rate. The shape functions at
nodes i, j, k, and l are expressed as follows:
N
i

1
4
1 n1 g 1
_

x
D
_
y
t
N
j

1
4
1 n1 g
x
D
y
t
N
k

1
4
1 n1 g
x
D
1
_

y
t
_
N
l

1
4
1 n1 g 1
_

x
D
_
1
_

x
D
_
1
_

y
t
_
8
The nodal force can be as follows:
F QA
F F
zi
; F
zj
; F
zk
; F
zl

T
A A
1
tD
1=2
; A
2
tD; A
3
t
2
D; A
4
t
2
D
1=2
_ _
T
9
Q
1
36
24 9 6 16
12 9 6 8
12 9 3 4
24 9 3 8
_

_
_

_
The displacement function w
R
r; y can be formulated by
the nodal displacement:
W
R
r; y
r
D
y
b
W
m

r
D
1
_

y
b
_
W
n
10
where W
m
and W
n
are the displacement at nodes m and n,
respectively.
Substituting Eq. (10) into Eq. (7) yields G
I
as follows:
G
I

1
2tD
F
zi
W
m
F
zj
W
n
11
In Eq. (11), with the force F
z
changed to be F
x
or F
y
, and
the displacement W replaced by U or V , the Mode II
energy release rate, G
II
, and Mode III energy release
rate, G
III
, can then be calculated.
5. Experimental work
In this research, the DCB specimens were fabricated
and tests were conducted to calculate the energy release
rate. Giant Company with their headquarters in Taiwan
supplies the graphite/epoxy composite prepreg. The
procedures for making the composite laminate are as
follows.
1. Get the prepreg from the freezer and put it in the ta-
ble for 8 12 h for defrosting as shown in Fig. 5.
2. Cut the prepreg into the desired size and number of
specimens.
Fig. 4. 3-D regular element at crack tip. Fig. 5. Prepreg of graphite/epoxy.
4 G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19
3. All of the plys are in 0 direction and 20 plys will be
made.
4. Put the Teon lm in the desired delamination area
of the composite laminate during the manual lay-up
of the prepeg.
5. Coat the epoxy on the Teon lm and remove it to
make a delamination between plys after the process-
ing is nished.
6. Through the thickness, the bers are stitched in the
assigned position. The stitching bers should not
be closely connected to avoid forming a stress-
concentrated area.
7. Coat the epoxy on the top and bottom surface of the
laminate, then put the laminate into the thermo-set
machine shown in Fig. 6.
The thermo-set procedure involves two steps. First,
the temperature of the thermo-set plate is increased to
80 C and kept for 30 min. Then, the temperature is
raised to 120 C and maintained for 20 min before being
reduced to room temperature, while the pressure is in-
creased up to 300 Psi and kept for 20 min to reduce the
residual stress in the composite laminate.
With a diamond-coated knife, the composite laminate
plate is cut into DCB specimens with length of 230 mm
(including the holding metal plate of 30 mm), width of
25 mm, thickness of 2 mm and pre-crack length of 35
mm. At the pre-crack edge of the specimen shown in
Fig. 7, holes of 3 mm diameter are drilled on the holding
metal plate. The locations of the stitching bers are
designed and many densely stitched DCB specimens are
pre-tested. If many stitching bers are located along the
width as shown in Figs. 8 and 9, the specimen will fail
before crack propagation due to the big bending mo-
ment, as described in [5]. To prevent the specimen from
failing before delamination propagates, the stitching -
bers are located as depicted in Fig. 9.
The loading tests are conducted on the 10KN Instron
test machine shown in Fig. 10. According to the ASTM-
D5528-94a rules, the loading speed is 5 mm/min, and the
liquid paper is coated on both sides of the specimen to
observe the propagation of delamination. The loading
and unloading procedures are repeated at dierent crack
length; the curves of the loading versus the displacement
are recorded in Fig. 11. With reference to these curves,
the critical load, the displacement at dierent crack
length can be obtained. The material constant, n, in Eq. Fig. 6. Thermo-set machine.
Fig. 7. DCB specimen.
Fig. 8. More bers stitched in the laminate.
Fig. 9. Specimen dimensions and locations of stitching bers.
Fig. 10. Loading and unloading process.
G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19 5
(3) can be calculated from the slope of the curve
depicting the relationship between the compliance of
crack length of loga. Thus, the critical energy release
rate at dierent crack length can be obtained.
6. The nite element model
The complete nite element model is shown in Fig.
12. The crack front and the locations of the stitching
bers are also re-plotted in Fig. 13. Near the crack front,
the ner mesh is developed to get more accurate results.
Owing to the symmetrical condition, only half of the
specimen was needed to generate the nite element
model. The laminate elements are created to simulate
the composite laminate, while the link elements are used
to represent the stitching bers. The cross-section of the
link element can be given to match with that of the real
ber. The stiness of the link element can be calculated
from the Youngs modulus of the stitching bers. The
locations of the stitching bers in the model are listed in
Table 1. To compare the eect of bers of dierent
stiness on the strain energy release rate, the stitching
locations are set at the same position. As seen in Table 1,
the stitching locations for dierent kinds of bers
showed a slight deviation due to the manual stitching
process. It is supposed that a small deviation in position
of the stitching bers did not aect the accuracy of the
test results. The material sources and properties are
listed in Table 2. The Youngs modulus and cross-sec-
tion of the bers are listed in Table 3. As can be seen, the
PAN-based carbon tow ber has the highest stiness
and greatest cross-section area, while the glass ber has
the lowest stiness with its cross-section area bigger than
that of the Para-Aramid ber. The load in the nite
element model is applied at the same location as that of
the test specimen. The other end of the model is xed in
the Z-direction to simulate symmetrical conditions.
7. Results and discussion
Figs. 1416 display the displacement results obtained
from experiments and by FEA analysis for the three
dierent bers. As can be seen, good agreement is found.
At the crack tip, the nodal force (F
yi
, F
yj
, F
yk
) and the
nodal displacement (V
l
, V
l
0 , V
m
, V
m
0 ) can be obtained from
the nite element analytical post-processing. Substitut-
ing all these values into Eq. (11) yields the strain energy
release rate. The critical strain energy release rates for
the composite laminate without and with stitching bers
of dierent stiness are summarized in Tables 47. As
can be seen, the critical strain energy release rate ob-
tained by the two methods show great consistency for
the same crack length. There is a big dierence between
the strain energy release rate of the glass ber-stitched
laminate obtained from nite element analyses and the
experimental data because the glass bers, which are
more fragile than the Para-Aramid ber and PAN-based
carbon tow ber, cannot be easily stitched through the
laminate. Therefore, glass bers stitching thread of a
bigger tow are employed, which may cause more dam-
age around the stitched area in the process. However,
the nite element analysis did not take into account
these damages. The experimental data showed that the
critical load would be decreased when the crack length
was increasing and the energy was released, but the
strain energy release rate would become larger due to
ber bridging for longer crack length. If the DCB was
much thinner, large deformation was easily observed
at the crack tip; the specimen would thus show a non-
Fig. 12. Finite element model of the specimen.
Fig. 13. The stitching ber elements mixed with laminate elements.
Fig. 11. Curves of loading P and displacement d.
6 G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19
linear relationship between the applied loading and the
opening displacement.
The calculations presented in Tables 47 are also
plotted in Figs. 1720. Generally, the critical energy
release rate for the laminate with stitching bers is sig-
nicantly increased. As seen in Fig. 17, the critical
energy release rate for the laminate stitched with Para-
Table 1
Location of stitching bers
Width (mm) Point A (mm) Point B (mm) Point C (mm) Point D (mm) Point E (mm)
Para-Aramid ber 24.8 (44,12) (55,4) (54,20) (65,9) (75,15)
Glass ber 24.8 (46,12) (55,4.5) (55,20) (65,9) (76,14)
PAN-based carbon tow ber 25 (45,12) (55,4) (55,20) (64,10) (75,15)
Fig. 14. Displacement at dierent crack length for Para-Aramid ber-
stitched specimens.
Fig. 15. Displacement at dierent crack length for glass ber-stitched
specimens.
Fig. 16. Displacement at dierent crack length for PAN-based carbon
tow ber-stitched specimens.
Table 4
Critical energy release rate of laminate without stitching bers
Crack length
(mm)
Compliance
method G
IC
(kJ/m
2
)
FEA G
Total
(kJ/m
2
)
Error (%)
Critical strain energy release rate (kJ/m
2
)
45 0.177 0.18317 3.49
55 0.186 0.1812 2.58
65 0.184 0.1974 7.28
Average 0.182 0.1873 4.45
Table 5
Critical energy release rate of laminate stitched with Para-Aramid ber
Crack length
(mm)
Compliance
method (kJ/m
2
)
FEA (kJ/m
2
) Error (%)
Critical strain energy release rate (kJ/m
2
)
44 0.711231 0.698121 1.8
54 0.880596 0.815058 7.4
65 0.565723 0.601803 6.3
Average 0.719184 0.704997 2.0
Table 6
Critical energy release rate of laminate stitched with glass ber
Crack length
(mm)
Compliance
method (kJ/m
2
)
FEA (kJ/m
2
) Error (%)
Critical strain energy release rate (kJ/m
2
)
44 0.592829 0.559582 5.6
54 0.550453 0.610394 10.8
65 0.694246 0.641518 7.6
Average 0.612509 0.603831 1.4
Table 3
Material properties of bers
Fiber Para-
Aramid
ber
Glass ber PAN-based
carbon tow
ber
E
11
(GPa) 120 72.4 230
A (cross-section area)
(mm
2
)
0.11 0.1885 mm
2
0.46 mm
2
Table 2
Material properties
Material source Giant Company
Material properties Carbon/epoxy
E
11
35 GPa
E
22
5.1 GPa
G
12
3.15 GPa
m
12
0.23
G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19 7
Aramid bers will be 3.5 times that of the non-stitched
laminate. The critical energy release rate for the lami-
nate stitched with glass bers is shown in Fig. 18. Fig. 19
shows that the strain energy release rate for the laminate
stitched with PAN-based carbon tow bers has a higher
value of around 5.5 times that of the non-stitched lam-
inate. As shown in Fig. 20, the PAN-based carbon tow
bers with higher stiness gain a higher Mode I energy
release rate compared with that of the other two bers
with lower stiness, thus revealing the eect of stitching
ber stiness on critical energy release rate. The results
also showed that stitching bers loosely through the
laminate thickness can improve the energy release rate
of the composite material, and can also avoid damaging
the laminate during the stitching process. Our study
showed that the nite element analyses combined with
the crack closure integral method can get very good
results comparable with the experimental data.
8. Conclusions
1. To avoid forming an area of higher stress concentra-
tion due to the high density of stitching bers and
continuous use of the DCB specimens, specimens
with stitching bers of low density were manufac-
tured and the critical energy release rate could be ob-
served through these procedures.
2. The experimental data showed that the critical load
decreased with increasing crack length and the energy
was released, but the strain energy release rate would
increase due to ber bridging for longer crack length.
3. If the DCB was much thinner, large deformation was
easily observed at the crack tip, showing a non-linear
relationship between the applied loading and the
opening displacement.
4. In the nite element analysis, the link elements could
be used to simulate the bers stitched through the
thickness of the laminate. Very ne mesh was re-
quired at the crack tip. The crack closure integral
method could be employed to calculate the energy re-
lease rate of the composite laminate with or without
stitching bers.
5. The critical strain energy release rate calculated using
the compliance calibration method with the critical
load obtained from the test results agrees very well
with that obtained from the nite element analysis
combined with the crack closure integral method.
6. Fibers stitched through the laminate thickness could
signicantly increase the Mode I energy release rate
even for low-density stitching bers.
Fig. 19. Comparison between non-stitched laminate and laminate
stitched PAN-based carbon tow bers.
Fig. 20. G
IC
comparison for laminates stitched by dierent bers.
Fig. 18. Comparison between non-stitched laminate and laminate
stitched with Glass bers.
Fig. 17. Comparison between non-stitched laminate and laminate
stitched with Para-Aramid bers.
Table 7
Critical energy release rate of laminate stitched with PAN-based car-
bon tow ber
Crack length
(mm)
Compliance
method (kJ/m
2
)
FEA (kJ/m
2
) Error (%)
Critical strain energy release rate (kJ/m
2
)
44 0.991546 1.00646 1.5
54 1.205721 1.184083 1.8
65 1.351392 1.28963 4.6
Average 1.182886 1.160058 1.9
8 G.-C. Tsai, J.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 69 (2005) 19
7. The PAN-based carbon tow bers of higher stiness
would improve signicantly the Mode I critical en-
ergy release rate up to 5.5 times that of the non-
stitched laminate. The Para-Aramid bers of medium
stiness would increase the Mode I critical energy re-
lease rate of the laminate up to 4 times. The glass -
bers of the lowest stiness could increase the Mode I
critical energy release rate up to 3 times that of non-
stitched laminate. Therefore, to improve the Mode I
critical energy release rate of the laminate, bers of
higher stiness must be selected even only bers of
low density were stitched through the thickness
of the composite laminate.
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