ABSTRACT
When fiber-reinforced composites containing unidirectional plies oriented in, or at small angles to, the loading direction are loaded in compression, the fibers may buckle in small regions of the test section (Rosen 1965). This is followed by the formation of kink zones (Evans and Adler 1978) and failure of the fibers at the boundaries of the kink zones because of locally large bending stresses (Figure 9.1).
