Identification of the elastic stiffness of composites using the virtual fields method and digital image correlation

This paper presents an effective methodology for characterizing the mechanical parameters of composites using digital image correlation combined with the virtual fields method. By using a three-point bending test configuration, this method can identify all mechanical parameters of the material with merely a single test. Successful results verified that this method is especially effective for characterizing composite materials. In this study, the method is applied to measure the orthotropic elastic parameters of fiber-reinforced polymer–matrix composites before and after the hygrothermal aging process. The results indicate that the hygrothermal aging environment significantly influences the mechanical property of a composite. The components of the parameters in the direction of the fiber bundle decreased significantly. From the accuracy analysis, we found that the actual measurement accuracy is sensitive to a shift of the horizontal edges and rotation of the vertical edges.