ISSN: 0884-6804
CODEN: JCTRER
Page Count: 8

Tensile and Compressive Failure Modes of Laminated Composites Loaded by Fatigue with Different Mean Stress
Rotem, A
Senior researcher, NASA Ames RC, CA

Abstract

Laminated composite materials tend to fail differently under tensile or compressive load. Under tension, the material accumulates cracks and fiber fractures, while under compression, the material delaminates and buckles. Tensile-compressive fatigue may cause either of these failure modes depending on the specific damage occurring in the laminate. This damage depends on the stress ratio of the fatigue loading. Analysis of the fatigue behavior of the composite laminate under tension-tension, compression-compression, and tension-compression had led to the development of a fatigue envelope presentation of the failure behavior. This envelope indicates the specific failure mode for any stress ratio and number of loading cycles. The construction of the fatigue envelope is based on the applied stress-cycles to failure (S-N) curves of both tensile-tensile and compressive-compressive fatigue. Test results are presented to verify the theoretical analysis.

Keywords:
fatigue, laminates, failure modes, mean stress

Paper ID: CTR10199J
DOI: 10.1520/CTR10199J
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