Fatigue of Composite Materials

Abstract

This paper reviews the area of fatigue of composite materials, particularly fibre-reinforced plastics, used in aerospace and other industries. The review concentrates on carbon, glass and aramid reinforcing fibres and epoxy resin as a matrix material. Mention is also made of newer matrices such as those based on thermoplastics.

An experimental characterization of the acoustic fatigue endurance of GLARE and comparison with that of CFRP

“…In fact, the presence of the damage in composites has a great influence on dynamic properties, such as stiffness, damping and natural frequency [10]. Stiffness, and hence natural frequency, is reduced as damage develops, and the latter parameter can be used as a criterion to define fatigue failure.…”

“…degradation of the material can occur with repeated stresses cycles with magnitude below those needed for static failure) but the failure mechanisms are different from those in metals [9,10]. In composites, one or more of damage mode (e.g.…”

Fatigue crack growth in laser-treated adhesively bonded composite joints: An experimental examination

“…Several studies showed that adhesively bonded joints are prone to mode-I cyclic delamination [9][10][11]. As a consequence, several approaches have been proposed that incorporate delamination properties into structural designs, and that predict cyclic failure mechanisms in CFRP structures [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Ashcroft et al [18] suggested that the maximum load that composite specimens under cyclic loading could withstand before failure was approximately 26% to 62% of the quasi-static strength.…”

Fatigue response of fabric reinforced polymeric composites

“…where, F ij and F i are functions of the number of cycles N, the stress ratio R and the frequency of loading. The tensor components, F ij and F i are calculated from the fatigue failure stresses (X t , X c , Y t , Y c and S) in the longitudinal, transverse and shear (1,2,6) directions, which are obtained by the S-N curve values of the laminate in the same directions and under the same conditions.…”

“…However, FRP composites are highly propose a fatigue design criteria for FRP bridge decks. [22][23][24][25][26][27] AASHTO Standard Specification and LRFD specifications require that the number of cycles to check for fatigue to be two million cycles, and the level of fatigue load be 75% of the actual axle load of a HS20-44 design truck to evaluate fatigue and fracture in steel structures [1,2]. In order to develop a practical qualification test and, in agreement with AASHTO Standard Specifications, two million cycles is being adopted by most researchers to evaluate the fatigue response of the FRP deck [23].…”