Identification of Orthotropic Elastic Stiffnesses of Composites with the Virtual Fields Method: Sensitivity Study and Experimental Validation

This paper presents the use of a sensitivity study to find the best combinations of free length and fibre angle in an unnotched Iosipescu test processed with the virtual fields method. The sensitivity to noise coefficients arising from the special virtual fields procedure are used to build up a cost function. This function is aimed at balancing out the coefficients of the different orthotropic stiffnesses so that the same confidence level can be reached on all these parameters. Then, experimental validation was performed using a speckled interferometry (ESPI) system. Full-field strains were measured and stiffnesses identified and compared between the usual 0°, 30 mm configuration and an improved 25°, 40 mm configuration. The outcome of the optimisation was confirmed by testing the same specimen several times and comparing scatter between the two configurations. This is a first promising result on the way to the design of a new test for orthotropic stiffness identification on a single specimen from full-field measurements.