This report takes an insight look into the process zone of a thin laminated composite. Mostly work was focused on microscopic observation and thickness calculations around the process zone of laminates. The laminates used in the work are Aluminium and Polyethylene. Investigations were done on a centred crack of constant length. Experiment and Finite element methods were used for analysis. Finite element modelling was used for comparison with experimental results. A commercial software ABAQUS is used for FEM calculations to find load, stress and reaction forces. The simulation results were observed to have a good agreement with experimental results. Thickness change was observed along the length of crack propagation and at the end of crack edge.

Process zone investigation has been done on aluminium ldpe laminates.first tensile tests were done for thin laminates on a MTS machine.then thickness calculation and microscopic investigations has been performed.and at the end simluation has been done in ABAQUS for comparison and stresss distributions and reaction forces in process zone region.