Translaminar Fracture in a Mini-Protruded Compact Tension Specimen: A Dataset of Micro-Scale Tomograms of a Thin-Ply Carbon Fibre-Epoxy Composite acquired via Synchrotron Radiation Computed Tomography During In-Situ Loading

In this study, we developed a scaled-down “mini-protruded compact tension specimen” to facilitate in-situ tensile testing coupled with synchrotron radiation computed tomography (SRCT). This innovative design provides valuable insights into in-situ translaminar damage mechanisms, significantly enhancing the accuracy of data used in finite element models. The specimen is made of HS40 carbon fibres and ThinPregTM 736LT epoxy resin, with the layup of [902/0/902/0/902/0/902]. The translaminar fracture experiments were conducted under continuous loading and scanning using ultra-fast SRCT at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) TOMCAT beamline (Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen, Switzerland). A polychromatic beam with an energy of 24 keV was used. The achieved voxel size was 800 nm, and 1000 projections per scan and 2 ms exposure time were acquired per scan. The GigaFRoST camera served as the detector. The scans were reconstructed into 3D volumes using the SLS’s in-house absorption-based algorithm (Gridrec) for critical loading steps during a test—both before and after a load drop (detailed in the accompanying Excel file). The tensile loading was exerted on the specimen at a rate of 0.2 mm/min until failure during scanning with the Deben CT500.