The mechanics of interface fracture:(3) experimental assessments

Three partition theories are assessed against experimental results for the prediction of delamination toughness of fiber-reinforced laminated composites. It is shown that Wang and Harvey’s classical partition theory [1, 2] gives the most accurate predictions; Davidson et al.’s non-singular field partition theory [3, 4] also gives accurate predictions; but the singular-field partition theory [3, 4] gives poor predictions.