Composite Failure Modes at High Cyclic Fatigue Life Evaluation

Abstract

Fibre reinforced polymer composite have been utilised in applications that require high strength-to-weight ratio and durability like automotive and spacecraft components. The literatures has indicated that there is a gap of knowledge in fatigue failure mechanism, and reliable prediction of fatigue life for glass and carbon fibre laminates. This study is to address experimentally the stress level dominated the composite failure mode and how to avoid stress concentration in fatigue design. In addition, it contributes to the scientific knowledge and to further increase the understanding the fatigue behaviour of composite materials structures. To accomplish this investigation goals, three types of materials were fabricated and tested; glass/epoxy, carbon/epoxy, and chopped glass/epoxy. Traditional hand layup technique for composite processing was used to fabricate the composite specimens. It involves manually positioning the reinforcement woven roving in an open mould and pouring, brushing, the resin onto the composites. This study details the experimental results of the ultimate tensile strength and high cycle fatigue, with a stress ratio of 0.1, using ASTM. Results showed that carbon fibre composite had the highest ultimate tensile strength. The power curves conducted from this paper were used to estimate the number of cycles which the material can endure.