PSI - Issue 33

6

Author name / StructuralIntegrity Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000

Jamaloddin Jamali et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 33 (2021) 832–842

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Fig. 7: A sample of cured CT specimen made of polyester

5. Experiment 5.1. Tensile testing

The tensile testing was performed according to ASTM D638 using a Tinus-Olsen universal testing machine with a displacement rate of 5mm/min (See Fig. 8). The specimen should be centered and vertical while fixed to the grips. Finally, after performing the experiment load vs. displacement curve is obtained in addition to engineering stress vs. engineering strain curve.

Fig. 8: Polyester tensile specimen fixed to the UTM to perform tensile testing according to ASTM D638. The picture shows the cross section of the dumbbell shape specimen.

5.2. Fracture testing To set up the CT test, the specimen should be fixed between two CT fixtures that are already fixed by the grips of the machine. The specimen is fixed in CT fixture by placing two pins in the holes of the specimen and the fixtures as shown in Fig. 9. Then, a mode I load is applied to the specimen and a load vs. displacement data is obtained from the machine.