Abstract
The main objective of this research is to investigate the fracture analysis of jute sandwich compositeswith 32 Vol% fiberweight content fabricated by modifying the hand lay-up technique with resin pre-impregnation into the jute fiberin thevacuum. This was carried out through open hole tension testwith different ratios of the specimen width, W to hole diameter(D=10.2 mm) with three different values (1.7, 2.3, 3) using the characteristic distance(do) principle based on the microstructureof these composites applying Whitney-Nuismer mathematical model. Therefore in this work, the physical meaning of dowasvalidated for different W/Dratios through the microstructure of the composites based on the calculated do.This was carried outthrough calculating and comparing thefiber pull out lengths from hole side up to doand from doto the end side of the specimen.The results showedthat the average fiber pull out length wasshorter after the crack reaches do than that over the characteristicdistance do whichvalidated and confirmedthat after the crack reachesdo the brittle fracture has been occurred.