Fatigue damage evolution in GFRP laminates with constrained off-axis plies

J. A. Glud, J. M. Dulieu-Barton*, O. T. Thomsen, L. C T Overgaard

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

30 Citations (Scopus)
102 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The characterisation of fatigue damage evolution in constrained glass fibre reinforced plastic off-axis laminates is presented. A newly developed imaging technique known as Automatic Crack Counting (ACC) is used to quantify the off-axis crack state in constant amplitude (CA) and variable amplitude (VA) block loading tension-tension fatigue tests and constant amplitude compression-tension tests. The quantified crack states are analysed by combining the newly developed ACC method with a data mining approach and applying these to large data sets obtained during fatigue tests. It is shown that for a constant stress level, the stochastic nature of off-axis crack initiation and crack growth is accurately modelled by the Weibull distribution, with the distribution parameters being efficiently derived using the developed approach. The data-rich characterisation provides new insight in the crack density evolution process for VA and C-T loading, as well as derived Weibull distribution parameters in combination with the classical S-N curves and Paris’ Law relationship. Hence, providing an improved approach that includes the stochastic and deterministic information for physically based modelling of crack density evolution for fatigue loading.

Original languageEnglish
JournalComposites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
Volume95
Pages (from-to)359-369
Number of pages11
ISSN1359-835X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2017

Keywords

  • Damage mechanics
  • Digital image processing
  • Fatigue
  • Polymer-matrix composites
  • Transverse cracking

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