Cubic test specimens fabricated using Newport NCT321/G150 carbon unitape prepreg have beentested under uniaxial compression. Three different methods based on – specimen surface strainmeasurement, strains based on actuator displacement, and relative displacement of loadingplatens, have been evaluated for determination of the material stiffness from the test. A finiteelement model was used to study the different factors affecting the strain measurement in a cubicspecimen under compression loading. The experiments reveal that the use of surface strainsresults in least error in computation of modulus, which is further supported by the finite elementanalysis. The analysis also indicates that the stress distribution in specimens tend to be moreuniform when the ratio of the platen to specimen modulus is about 10 or higher.
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