Fracture analysis of a metal to CFRP hybrid with thermoplastic interlayers for interfacial stress relaxation using in situ thermography

In this work a plane hybrid-structure composed of a metal and a carbon-fiber-reinforced-polymer (CFRP) constituent is introduced. Hereby an interlayer is inserted between the metal and the CFRP constituent, pursuing the task of stress relaxation. In order to study the effect of interfacial stress relaxation several thermoplastics are investigated. In situ passive thermography is used to assess the damage during quasi-static and fatigue mechanical loading. Thus, mechanical properties are correlated with corresponding damage-quantities from nondestructive testing (ndt). These results reveal that transversal cracking and modeI delamination are the dominant failure processes, which strongly depend on the thermoplastic material. Additional finite element analysis describes strain-energy- and stress concentrations, which coincide with the observed damage mechanisms and the origins of fracture.