Composite Structures 54 (2001) 283287

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

A fuzzy set analysis for a fracture and fatigue damage

response of composite materials
A. Muc *, P. Kez dziora
Institute of Mechanics and Machine Design, Cracow University of Technology, ul. Warszawska 24, 31-155 Krak
ow, Poland

Abstract
Experimental data, especially for fatigue tests, have ranges of scatter aected by variability in material microstructure from one
test specimen to another. In order to avoid such problems and on the other hand, to include variability in mechanical and geometrical properties a fuzzy set approach have been adopted to the analysis of matrix cracking in cross-ply laminates. With the use of
nite element modelling values of the J-integral have been evaluated as well as the shear lag eects have been studied. Numerical
results have been presented for plates with cracks subjected to remote tension. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fuzzy set analysis; Fracture and fatigue damage; Composite materials

1. Introduction
Many observations have conrmed that the initiation
of damage in multidirectional laminates is often by
matrix microcracks in the o-axis plies running parallel
to the bre direction in those plies see e.g., [1,2]. In [3,4],
it has been demonstrated that the crack density in the
o-axis plies reaches an asymptotic saturation state,
called the characteristic damage state (CDS) at which
they form roughly regular pattern. The transverse matrix cracking saturates from the beginning of the fatigue
process and leads to the decrease of the laminate stiness. However, although the phenomenon is well-known
there are continuous problems with a correct and accurate prediction of the laminate behaviour with the
increasing number of fatigue cycles for dierent composite plies, layups, loading and boundary conditions.
Up to now the description is rather qualitative than
quantitative since the experimental results have commonly ranges of scatter and in this way may give an
information about a general trend of the fatigue process
and mechanisms only. The variability in experimental
data is mainly a result of variability in material microstructure and variability in testing conditions. In the
description of fatigue problems there are commonly
employed well-established methods of probability the*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +48-12-648-4531; fax: +48-12-6484531.

E-mail address: olekmuc@mech.pk.edu.pl (A. Muc).

ory. However, for situations when we do not have sufcient experimental data or the values of parameters are
of a non-stochastic nature, the fuzzy-set approach has
been proposed [57] as a better and more natural approach. Among the advantages of the fuzzy set approach over the probabilistic one, we can mention:
1. the simple estimations of the probability of results
with no probability distributions,
2. the easy implementation in conjunction with numerical methods (e.g., nite element analysis).
The aim of the present investigations is to consider
ranges of variation of cross-ply laminates in the response to the appearance of transverse cracks. Both
cracks as well as material parameters of the laminate
have pre-selected variations (fuzziness). To achieve this
objective, a fuzzy-set based approach in conjunction
with a nite element analysis and fracture mechanics is
employed. The material response is taken to be linear
elastic (the linear elastic fracture mechanics). The analysis aims in constructing upper and lower bounds for
various parameters.

2. Modelling and description of matrix cracking

The rst simplest analysis of failure have been developed using ply failure degradation model. As a single
ply fails, it is assumed that the transverse Young's
modulus and the axial Kirchho's modulus are reduced
to zero, and then a new stress analysis is performed.

0263-8223/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 3 - 8 2 2 3 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 9 9 - X

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Reifsnider [4] has developed a so-called shear lag model

which recognizes that the load transfer must take place
in the failed ply in the vicinity of the crack. Hashin [8]
has constructed a simple analytical model possessing
one unknown function that describes the stress reduction due to the appearance of transverse matrix cracks.
Wang [9] has proposed a probabilistic and mechanistic
model of intralaminar cracking in laminates using the
theory of aws and a nite element analysis. The introduced approach provides stochastic mimicking of the
physical behaviour of the cracking mechanisms. The
probabilistic distribution applied in the model is based
on the crack location distribution and on the eective
aw size distribution. As the result the aw tip strain
energy release rate is calculated in pure mode I. The
thermal residual stress eects are also taken into considerations in [9].

ponent, u1;i is the derivative of the displacement and ti is

the traction vector at the same point at the contour C. C
is the contour starting from the crack face and going
round the crack tip in an anti-clock wise direction and
ending on the other crack face. This J-integral is seen to
be the rate of change of potential energy with respect to
the crack length a. For the linear elastic material the Jintegral is equal to the energy release rate G. Since the
laminate is subjected to the remote tension the rst
mode only is analysed herein. In the evaluation of the Jintegral, contour path is taken along the nite element
edge and values and quantities in Eq. (1) are computed
at the element level.
In the numerical analysis, each ply is assumed to be
made of carbon/epoxy resin having the following material properties (treated as it will be explained later as
mean values):
E1 200 GPa;

3. Computational procedure
Let us consider the cross-ply laminate 0; 90n S ,
loaded in a remote tension (equal to 1 MPa) along the x
direction. The thickness of each individual ply is equal
to t, so that the total thickness of the laminate is equal to
2n 2t. The crack is described by its size a in the y
direction and the position of its center xa . The geometrical parameters of the laminate and of the crack are
shown in Fig. 1.
The crack is always symmetric with respect to the x
axis. Thus, only a half of the laminate is discretised with
the use of nite elements. The plate have been modelled
using 1536 2-D eight node isoparametric plane stress element. In the model crack face nodes are left free. The
thickness of the laminate in the z direction is assumed to be
equal to one. All geometrical quantities are given in mm.
With the aid of the presented nite element model the
J-integral have been computed. In terms of stresses and
strains it is dened as follows:
Z
J Wn1 ti ui;1 ds;
1

G12 8 GPa;

E2 12 GPa;
G23 G12 8 GPa;

G13 0:6  G12 4:8 GPa;

m12 0:3:

In order to verify the eectiveness of the proposed

method of the numerical computations the analytical
example dealing with the fracture analysis of a square
isotropic homogeneous plate with central crack subjected to tension have been solved see Broek [10]. Due
to the central symmetry, one quarter of the plate have
been analysed and discretised with the use of 768 nite
elements. In the evaluation of the J-integral, two contour paths are taken to compare the results. Each contour paths runs around the crack tip from lower crack
face up to the top crack surface along the nite element
edges it is drawn schematically in Fig. 2.
The results of computations are presented in Table 1
together with the analytical results. The agreement between them seems to be very good. In further computations, two dierent contour paths are always taken
into considerations in order to eliminate possible errors
in modelling of the path.

where W is the strain energy, u is displacement vector at

any point on the contour, n1 is the normal vector com-

Fig. 1. The geometrical parameters of the laminate with the crack.

Fig. 2. Contour paths C denitions.

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285

Table 1
Comparison of analytical and numerical values of the J-integral
Path I

Path II

Analytical 10

0.14374 E-04

0.15189 E-04

0.15122 E-04

4. The vertex method

Variability (fuzziness) in parameters (of any type, i.e.,
geometrical, mechanical etc.) is introduced by specifying
so-called a membership function lx. x denotes herein a
representative parameter. In the present study, the
membership function is assumed to be triangular as
shown in Fig. 3.
The membership function is a vertical representation
of the fuzzy parameter x. There is also an equivalent
horizontal representation called as an a-cut, see Fig. 3.
The a-cut denotes the interval la in which the possibility of x is at least equal to a. In the vertex method, the
membership functions of all fuzzy parameters
xi i 1; 2; . . . ; N are discretised using several a-cuts.
Dierent binary combinations are formed by the left (a)
and the right (b) end points. The number of combinations can be written in the following form (not only for
the triangular membership functions):
 N
for 0 6 a < 1;
2
Nc=a
3
1
for a 1:
The binary combinations are referred to henceforth as
Ca;j (j 1; 2; . . . ; Nc=a ). Since the J-integral is treated as
the output response of the input fuzzy parameters, then
the relation can be written in the following form:
J F x1 ; x2 ; . . . ; xN F Ca;j ;

where F means the relation which is derived in a numerical way. For a given a-cut, the corresponding interval in the J-integral is obtained from the relation (see
[11]):
 L R h



i
Ja ; Ja min jk;j F Ck;j ; max jk;j F Ck;j ;
k P a; j 1; 2; . . . Nc;a :

In the geometrical sense any a-cut constitutes a hypercube in the N-dimensional space, whereas the J-integral
(the response) is located in the N 1 dimension. For the

Fig. 3. Triangular membership function.

Fig. 4. Hypercubes in 2-dimensional space (N 2).

brevity of considerations let us assume that N 2, so

that the a-cut is rectangular Fig. 4. As it may be noticed
the possibility distributions lJ can be constructed by
applying Eq. (5) to a sweep of a-cuts at dierent possibility levels ranging from 0 to 1, i.e., starting from the
largest rectangular (a 0) and nishing at the point
(a 1). If the implicit relation (4) is a monotonically
increasing (decreasing) function with respect to all
variables, Eq. (5) gives always the correct bounds (estimations) of the response value.
5. Numerical results
In the numerical analysis four parameters are considered to be fuzzy, namely, three mechanical parameters Young's moduli E1 ; E2 , Kirchho's modulus G12
and one geometrical parameter describing the position
of the crack center xa . For the mechanical parameters
the nominal value corresponding to a 1 (Fig. 3) is
taken to be equal to the value in Eq. (2). Their variability (fuzziness) is taken to be equal to 10% which
falls with typical ranges of scatter in experimental data
from static tests. It is assumed that the position of the
crack center can vary in the interval [0, Lx /4] (Lx the total
length of the laminate). The vertex of the triangular
membership functions is always located at the middle of
the intervals describing variations of the parameters. It
should be emphasised that the form of the membership
function is a hypothesis and the triangle plotted in Fig. 3
can be replaced by other function satisfying experimental conditions and results or simply the assumptions
of the theoretical modelling.
The possibility distributions of the response quantity
in the sense of the J-integral at a 0, 0.5 and 1 are
presented in Fig. 5. The response is plotted in the dimensionless form and it is referred to the value of the Jintegral for isotropic plate. The value is presented and
discussed in the Section 3 see also Table 1. There is
observed a typical drop of the curve toward the outer
layer interface. However, as it may be seen there is lack
of the symmetry with respect to the curve a 1.
Therefore it is necessary to consider the variations of
material and geometrical properties since the distributions of all eects is not symmetric.

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A. Muc, P. Kez dziora / Composite Structures 54 (2001) 283287

plotted in Fig. 6. As it may be noticed, there is a signicant inuence of the variability in parameters on the
values of the retention factor Rs and it cannot be
eliminated from the considerations.
Up to now, using the above method it is possible to
evaluate the stiness reduction of the laminate as the
CDS level will be reached, having in addition the information about the variability of all parameters describing the transverse matrix cracking. It will be
discussed in details in the next work.
6. Conclusions

Fig. 5. Variations of the J-integral values.

Using the results plotted in Fig. 5 it is possible also to

build an appropriate possibility distribution or a reliability function for the discussed problem.
The interaction between the neighbourhood cracks
and the resulting reduction of the J-integral value is a
characteristic feature in the matrix cracking. That eect
can be described with the use of the retention factor Rs
and is dened in the following way:
Ga1 RsGa0 ;

where G denotes the energy release rate (equivalent

herein to the value of the J-integral), and a0 ; a1 are the
length of two neighbourhood cracks. The value Ga0 )
corresponds to the situation when one crack having the
length a0 exists only in the laminate. In order to take
into account the dimensionless sizes of two neighbourhood cracks, the additional geometrical fuzzy parameter
f have been introduced in the form of the ratio a0 =a1 . It
is assumed that the value of the f parameter belongs to
the interval 0:5; 1:0. The results of computations are

A fuzzy set-based approach is used in conjunction

with the nite element analysis to study the variability of
geometrical and mechanical parameters in the energy
release rate response (the J-integral) of the cross-ply
laminate. Up to now the response is described by the
methods of the linear elastic fracture mechanics. Numerical studies are conducted for plane stress problem in
conjunction to the application to fatigue problems with
respect to the stiness reduction (degradation) during
the process of transverse matrix cracking. The synergistic eect of fuzziness introduced in more than one
material or geometrical parameter is found to result in:
1. Signicantly larger range and unsymmetry of variability in the output response quantity compared to
the analysis of variations of one parameter only.
2. Certain combinations of parameters are more critical
than others with the regard to values of the J-integral
and of the retention factor. It may be important from
the engineering point of view in the estimation and in
the evaluation of the stiness degradation due to matrix cracking.
3. Using the above method it is possible to include also
thermal and environmental eects what may be crucial in the estimation of the residual stresses.
Acknowledgements
The support from the KBN under the grant PB-847/
T07/98/14 is gratefully acknowledged.
References

Fig. 6. Variations of the energy release rate retention factor.

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