Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2016
Fibre reinforced metal laminates (FRMLs) are a new family of aerospace structural materials developed for fatigue critical applications. These materials are laminated sheets of thin and high strength metal layers, usually aluminium, and alternating plies of fibre reinforced polymer composite layers, viz, aramid/epoxy, carbon/epoxy, glass /epoxy, etc. Afaghi-Khatabi and Ye have considered the fracture data existing on various ARALL (aramid reinforced aluminium) laminates containing a circular hole for evaluation of notched tensile strength, using the effective crack growth model (ECGM), point stress criterion (PSC) of Whitney and Nuismer and damage zone criterion (DZC) of Eriksson and Aronsson. It is noted that ECGM overestimates, whereas PSC and DZC underestimate the notched tensile strength of FRMLs. This note highlights briefly the two different criteria of Whitney and Nuismer known as ‘point stress criterion (PSC)’ and ‘average stress criterion (ASC)’, and suggests a modification in the criteria for accurate evaluation of the notched tensile strength.