Considerations for Progressive Damage in Fiber-Reinforced Composite Materials Subject to Fatigue

Due to the increased use of composite materials in the aerospace industry, numerous attempts have been made to develop fatigue models in order to predict the fatigue behaviour and consequently the fatigue life of these materials. Existing fatigue models have significant deficiencies, thus are not widely acceptable in the industry. A better understanding of the exhibited fatigue behaviour of composite materials is consequently required. The complex nature of fatigue behaviour in fiber-reinforced composite materials is presently investigated. An explicit progressive damage model, that is mechanistic in nature, is currently being developed using the concept of a representative volume element. A micromechanical finite element model that is capable of explicit damage initiation and propagation modeling is utilized for simulation of damage development. The predicted numerical results illustrate the capabilities of the current model. Future work is also outlined in the paper as the development of the fatigue model is continued.

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