FML fatigue - Composite has superior fatigue performance than aluminium.

The hybrid composite

will perform better than aluminium, but not as good as the composite by itself. Laminate will have
higher failure stress for same number of cycles. Al fails at 500-600 MPa, so when Al fails due to
cracks, the laminate can still handle the load as they can have failure strengths of 1000 MPa +, so
when AL fails due to cracks, the stress is now carried by the laminate. Crack in laminate are bridged
by the fibres. Stress used to increase crack size is diverted through the fibres, which relieve stresses
around crack and slow down the crack growth. Stress concentrations not as high around crack
because this stress gets transferred to the fibres, thus crack growth is slower FIBRE BRIDGING

Moisture absorption and effect on composite properties: Reason mechanical properties degrade
with moisture absorption. When aircraft operating at temps below 0 degrees, the water absorbed
will freeze and expand, causing delamination. Surface flaws cause failure for fibres. When water is in
composite, it can seep into the crack, and through a chemical reaction, causing an increase in the
size of the surface flaw, decreasing the strength of that fibre filament. Prolonged exposure to water
may cause polymer to undergo hydrolysis, which will break the matrix apart. Once properties of
composite are lowered, the glass transition temperature is also lowered. USUALLY IN HUMID
CONDITIONS – HOT AND WET ENVIRONMENT.

BVID – How do delaminations lead to failure? When a laminate is under impact, it can undergo
delamination which causes significant reduction in compressive strength. Say a delamination or a
crack forms due to impact, when under a compressive load, it will most likely fail due to buckling.
the slenderness ratio determines critical buckling load. Delamination separates laminate, leading to
thin sections, causing micro buckling, which then leads to global buckling, causing compressive
strength to reduce and laminate to fail. Microbuckling will also cause kink bends, which can cause
the laminate to fail via shear. Failure due to shear is more likely for thick laminates, resistance to
microbuckling is lower than that of kink failure due to shear.

Sizing agent – A sizing agent is used to improve bonding between fibre and matrix. It is a thin coating
applied around fibre, and has properties which are not of the fibre or of the matrix, but somewhere
between the two. Acts as a coupling agent and helps to bond the matrix and the fibre. Coating also
helps in reducing surface flaws due to handling. Protects the fibre during mechanical handling.
Coatings or emulsifier is usually water based, where filaments are passed through, then goes into an
oven where water is dried off and sizing agent is kept on.

Through thickness properties:

Toughen matrix

- Silica/rubber in matrix
- Use nano particles
- Infuse thermosets with thermosets

Through thickness reinforcements:

- Z-pins: enhances through thickness properties l Can change this by changing the volume
fraction of z pins, more z-pins = better through thickness properties. Reduction in in-plane is
not as severe as 3D braiding. However, Z-pins suffer from pull out when there are cracks.
Once you apply stress beyond interfacial strength value, causing z pin to de-bond from
 matrix and pull out. Reduces in plane properties as it causes damage to plies by puching
through. Can control diameter of stitches and z-pins. If z-pins are too thin, they will not be
able to be inserted into matrix. If pins are too thin, they will buckle.
- 3D weaving:
- 3D braiding: severely reduces in plane properties (most out of all methods), but provides
with best through thickness reinforcement. Fibre used to carry load moves up between
layers, being used as through thickness reinforcement
- 3D stitching: Doesn’t suffer by pull out like Z-pins, as it is like an anchor. It will only fail
through tension causing fracture. Diameter of stitch can be reduces a lot, which will cause
less damage and reduce in-plane properties less

Downside of through thickness reinforcement is that they have a negative effect on in-plane
properties.

Why is the fracture toughness of the matrix and fibre separately don’t add up to that of the
composite

Failure of fibre will be governed by largest surface flaw seen on that fibre. If one of the fibres
was to fail, still have other fibres with small surface flaw still intact. For single fibre, when filure
strength is reached, the single fibre will fail. Due to the different failure strengths of fibres.
Average failure for in-plane is higher than that of a single fibre, as there will be fibres which will
have higher stresses. strength shear lag, stresses can be transmitted through the polymer
between fibre reinforcements, increasing

Single fibre filament embedded in resin. Iniitially when stress is applied to composite, no
debonding as fibre is attached to matrix. However interfacaila strength has a limit As stress is
increased, it eventually becomes higher than that of the interfacial strength of the matrix. When
this happens, there is debonding and fibre tries to pull out. This causes a momentary reducton
in stress once the debond has happened. However the fibre is not a perfectly circular cylinfder,
so it will still have friction on the walls, which causes fibres to pull out slowly, which dissipates
energy and is the reduction after the initial decrease in curve. Provides additional fracture
toughness. This happens if composite has fibre pull out failure.

BOOK

Chapter 8 – Properties of Composite Systems

Glass composites

- Not used in structural components due to low stiffness, high density and poor fatigue
performance. Fatigue performance reduced in humid environments, as moisture gets
absorbed by composite, leading to larger surface flaws and reduced strength and stiffness.
This also reduces glass transition temperature. Low thermal conductivity too
- High impact strength. Moisture also weakens fibre matrix interface, reducing mechanical
properties

Aramid Composites

- Have anisotropic properties due to Aramid. Strong covalent bonds in one direction and weak
hydrogen bonds in the other give anisotropic properties.
- Extremely low compressive strength
 - high impact damage resistance due to non-ilinear compression behaviour and high strain to
failure under compression
- favourable dielectric properties – used in radar domes.
- Must be stored In low humidity conditions or dried before use due to high 6% moisture
absorption
- Difficult to machine due to high toughness.
- High vibration damping from non-linear deformation of fibres in compression
- Suited for pressure vessels due to excellent tensile properties and resistance to mechanical
damage.

Carbon Fibres

- Structural applications due to high strength and stiffness

- PAN based fibres used because of attractive material propertiess, lower cost and better
handling characteristics
- Pitch based fibres used in satellites due to superior stiffness and thermal properties,
including high conductivity and low coefficient of thermal expansion.
- Under compression loading, elastic properties of matrix support fibres against microbuckling
- Interlaminar strength determined by matrix properties and the fibre matrix bond strength.

Impact Damage Resistance

- High impact damage resistance of glass and aramid are due to their high-strain capacity of
fibres when loaded in the fibre direction.
- High energy impacts cause through-penetration and local delaminations.
- Low energy impacts do not cause penetration, but can cause BVID and internal
delaminations.
- Woven fibres show less internal damage than unidirectional, because damage growth
between layers is constrained by the weave.

Effect of BVID on Residual Strength

- Reduces compressive strength. Delaminations cause separation in laminates, leading to thin

sections. These thin sections undergo microbuckling, which leads to global buckling,
reducing the compressive strength of the laminate. As more impacts occur, the compressive
strength falls drastically until fracture occurs

Moisture Absorption

- Reduces mechanical properties. Does this by increasing size of surface flaws in fibres and
degrading matrix. Occurs via diffusion of moisture into composite
- Plasticizes the matrix, leading to a reduction in the glass transition temperature.
- GTT is important quantity because it defines the temperature at which material properties
are drastically reduced as the matrix changes from a glassy, stiff state to a rubbery one.
- Therefore moisture absorption will have a greater effect on the elevated temperature
properties of a composite, as it reduces the glass transition temp. Properties at ambient
conditions should be relatively similar.
 - At high altitudes, water trapped in cracks and/or voids can freeze and expand, leading to
delamination.
- Thermal spiking is exposing a composite with high moisture content to rapid rises in
temperature.
- Moisture absorption will increase stress by generating microcracks

CHAPTER 9 – JOINING OF COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

- In mechanical joints, loads are transferred between joint elements by compression on

internal faces of fastener holes and shear on outer faces due to friction. In bonded joint,
loads are mainly only transferred by shear on surfaces of elements. Load transmission
elements are stressed primarily in shear along the joint line.
- Composites have low through thickness and bearing strength under concentrated loads, so
metals are sometimes required to transmit loads in and out of highly loaded composite
structures

Single load paths

- Joints where failure would result in catastrophic loss of structural capability

Multiple load paths

- Failure of single element will result in load being carried by other members.

Adhesive bonding

- Bonding attractive for thin-skinned structures prone to fatigue.

- Need suitable pre-bonding surface treatments for adequate strength
- High level of quality control for reliable bonding
- Costly for thick composites
- Cannot be disassembled
- Damage tolerant
- Lighter weight
- High cost
- Lightweight
- Sealed against corrosion
- Small stress concentrations at adherents
- Environmental degradation
- Sensitive to peel and through thickness stresses
- Inspection more costly and difficult
- Non-destructive inspection can’t detect weak bonds due to environmental degradation.
- Joint strength increased by increasing bond area, reducing bond line shear stresses and
increasing adhesive thickness (up to a limit)

Modes of Failure in Adhesive joints

- Tensile, compressive or shear of adherends

- Shear or peel in adhesive layer
- Shear or peel in composite near surface plies
- Shear or peel in resin rich layer on surface of composite
- Adhesive failure at metal or composite/adhesive interface
- Want failure of joint to be by bulk failure of adherends. Adhesive not allowed to be weakest
link.
- Weakest state of adherents is in humid conditions.Adherends need surface treatment to
prevent degredation of properties through humidity. Avoid through thicknress loading due
to poor through thickness properties of adherends and composite

Types of Adhesive Joints

- Single lap: cheapest, but loads are offset so it generates a secondary bending moment.
Resulting in severe peel stresses.
- Double lap: no primary bending moment. Small peel stresses due to unbalanced shear
stresses. Peel and shear stresses can be reduced by tapering ends of joint
- Scarf & step-lap: develop negligible peel stresses and may be used to join composite
components of any thickness.
- Lap joints not used because of concerns with long-term environmental durability.

Effects of defects in lap joints

- Manufacturing defects and service damage defects occur in adhesive layer. These include
disbanded regions, porosity, locally thinned regions
- During manufacture, excessive adhesive may flow out of the ends of the joints, due to little
resistance to flow of adhesive. In this case, there will only be a porus adhesive layer left
behind.
- Increasing length of steps In step lap joints increases load carrying capacity
- To avoid overloading thin steps, must reduce step length
- Peel stresses not an issue because of alignment of primaru loads and small thickness change
at ends of each step

Structural Adhesives

- Adhesives made by secondary bonding or cocuring. In secondary bonding, compononts of

joints are first manufactured ad then bonded to adhesives. In cocuring, joint and component
are cured along with adhesive during bonding. Cocuring reduces process to one step,
removes critical adhesive interface and allows for very good dimensional control
- Most structural adhesives are based on epoxies. Can’t use normal unmodified epoxies
because they are too brittle for structural adhesive.
- Past or films. Pastes are two component form and are mixed together before use. Cure at
ambient temperature. Films formed by coating woven cloth with adhesive resin, which is
partially cured to increase viscosity. Film is packaged between release film. Film dhesives
have higher strengths, don’t need weighing and mixing, less messy, less porosity and easier
ot be placed on adherend surface, higher quality control. However they are costly, need low
storage temperatures, high pressure and high curing temperatures
- Carrier in film adhesives provides mechanical strength to uncured adhesive to aid handling,
control’s flow and prevents over thinning of adhesive. Provides insulating layer if adhesive is
completely squeezed out
- Residual stresses occur when joining adherends of different co-eff of thermal exp with
elevated temp curing adhesive. Eh. When joining Al to composites. So residual stress can be
minimised by using adhesives with low curing temps, high ductility and low shear modulus.
- Moisture is main agent responsible for degradation of metal/adhesive interface. High
temperatures can cause degradation to adhesive via oxidisation or chemical reactions.
Fracture failure in adherent

- Failure within adhesive is cohesive failure, and rrepresents maximum fracture resistance (i.e
requires most energy). Failure at adherend/adhesive interface is adhesive failure and is not
an optimum mode of failure, and results from inadequate pre-bonding surface preparation
- Want failure in adhesive rather than composite
- Mode I (peel failure) is of most concern for adhesives.

Failure modes under cyclic loading

- Fatigue strength of interface will be maximum when interface of fibre layers all orientated in
same direction as major load. This fibre orientation will inhibit any cracks in adhesive layer
from entering the weaker composite interface. Fibre orientation will have less influence if
layer of matrix resin on surface is present because this will become preferred path for crack
propagation (resin rich layer). At 0 deg orientation, crack grew and stayed in adhesive. At 45,
crack grew in adhesive and propagated caused delamination between 45 deg plies. At 90
deg, ply damage initiated by transverse cracking in ply, then cgrew through delaminations
and cracking near +- 45 deg pliesand then delam between 0 and 45 deg plies.
- At elevated temps, damage growth only in adhesive. At low temps, damage grew in
composite matrix.

Moisture effects to adhesives

- Moisture can plasticise matric, reducing mechanical properties, especially at elevated temps
- Reduce glass transition temp
- Damage adherend/adhesive interface through chemical reaction or physical displacement of
adhesive by water.
- Provide residual stresses by causing swelling or cracking of adhesive
- Weaken joint through chemical reactions

Surface treatments for composites

- Best is grit blasting with alumina or silicon carbide particles. Provides clean, uniform, high-
energy surface

Mechanical/bolted joints

- Can be disassembled
- No thickness limitations
- No residual stress issues
- Not sensitive to peel stresses and provides through thickness reinforcement
- High stress concentrations
- Fatigue cracking
- Damage to composite by drilling hole
- Corrosion, and composite’s poor bearing properties
- Lower cost
- Excessive shimming to reduce composite damage
- Low cost tooling and inspection
- Fastener holes cut fibres, destroying load paths
- Only feasible and/or economic means of joining highly loaded thick composite components.

Design considerations
- Load transfer accomplished by compression (bearing) on face of holes passing through the
joint members by shear of the fasteners.
- Load transferred through friction on face of joint if clamping factors are sufficient
- High clamping forces required to develop high friction forces to maximize bearing strength.
- Might not be possible to maintain these clamping forces due to wear under service loads
and damage on composites.
- Bearing failure results in hole elongation, allowing bending and subsequent fatigue of bolt or
substructure. Altternatively, faster head can pull through laminate (problem with
countersunk fasteners).
- For large w/d and e, failure occurs through bearing failure
- For low w/d, failure/de occurs via tensile failure. Joint strength – 0 when w/d = 1.
- For low e/d, shear filure occurs. Joint strength = 0 when e/d = 0.5
- Quasi isotropic preferred as non 0 fibres carry load around hole to prevent shear or cleavage
failures. 0 fibres carry primary bending and tension loads. Desired failure mode is net
tension or compression, but bailuing failure may be preferred in some situations.

Single hole joints under tensile loads

- Stress concentration factors considered. Highest for 0 degree orientation, lowest for +- 45.
Stress conc factor decreases as +- 45 plies are increased.
- Two failure criterions: Avg stress – where failure happens when average value of tensile
strength across characteristic length from hole reaches unnotched failure strength of
laminate. Point stress – where failure happens when local value of stress at characteristic
distance from hole reaches unnotched failure strength
- Characteristic length and distance are material properties
- w/d of atleas 5 and e/d of atleast 3 so joint srrength isn’t limited by tensile or shear-out
failure
- quasi isotropic optimum config for optimum strength in mechanical joints
- For brittle materials, max strength of 21% of that of a virgin material reached at d/w = 0.4.
for composites, tension to bearing occurs at d/w of 0.3. For comp, max strength eff is 40%,
and is 65% for metal

Single hole joints under compression

- Compressive strength higher than tension because some of the load can be transferred to
the fastener.

Bearing failure

- In carbon/epoxy composites, bearing failure occurs by local buckling and kinking of fibres
and subsequent crushing of the matrix.
- Bearing strength is strongly dependent on degree of constraint (clamping stress) provided by
fastener on properties of matrix.
- Bearing strength initially increases with amount of 0 degree plies. But when 0 degree plies
exceeds 60% of total laminate plies, failure through splitting occurs because transverse
strength is too low to prevent shear failure. Optimum bearing strength for 0/+-45 occurs at
50% 0 and 50% +-45
- Matrix softening can reduce high local loads through better contact of fastener with hole.
- Loss in bearing strength in joints at elevated temperatures can be reduced by maintaining
high local constraint through bolt clamping
Multi row joints

- Main reason for using these is to minimise peak bearing load, avoiding cut-off due to bearing
failure.
- To do this, even load must be carried by each joint. Flexible fasteners provide this (metals,
ductile materials).

Fatigue loading on open holes

- Under tension or compression, failure initiates sin regions of high stress concentrations such
as matrix mirocracking and local disbanding of fibres from matrix. This damage reduces in
plane stress conc and increases residueal strength. Localised damage increases until it
results in intrelaminar cracking, leading to delaminations
- Under tension, delaminations is beneficial as it keeps damage llocalised.
- Under compression, loss og section in stiffness can lead to buckling failure of remaining
material.

Double vs single shear joints

- Double shear preferred as symmetrical oading minimises bending and fastener rotation
- Single shear joints have lower joint strengths, but used when access is limited to one side
during assembly
- Strength loss can be minimised if joint is supported
- Often used with countersunk fasteners to maintain aero smoothness.
- However this causes problems: fastener rotation due to unsymmetrical loading and
reduction in bearing area in fastener hole cause by countersunk
- Under extreme loading or hole elongation under cyclic loading, pull out of fastener or failure
of fastener head can occur

Non-metallic vs metallic fasteners

- Non metallic reduce weight

- Increase electromagnetic transparency, reducing radar cross section
- Eliminate corrosion problems
- Avoid fuel tank arcing during lightning strike
- Don’t have load bearing capacity of titanium or steel

Hole prep

- Diamond cut drills provide best performance

- Laminate must be clamped and supported during drilling.
- Composite can be coated with layer of adhesive toreduce delamination on exit
- Delamination can be minimized by using slow feed rate
- Tight fit of fastener can improve fatigure performance

Hole strengthening

- Make composite thicker

- Use bonded reinforcements
- Reduce stress concentrations at edge of hole by using stiffer fibres or local softening with
low modulus fibre
- Also soften via incorporation extra +- 45 degree plies. These improve net and ebaring
strength
 - Use inserts, as inserts reduce bearing stress by thickening laminate
- Layer of glass/epoxy or aramid/epoxy used between al and carbon/epoxy to avoid galvanic
corrosion

Component alignment

- Need to use shimming

- Shimming is one of the most costly operations for fasteners
- Composite partes req more shimming than metal pasts because of lower manufacturing
tolerances and composites are less tolerant to force fitting due to their brittle nature.

Bonded and bolted joints

- Usually much stiffer than that of just a mechanical fastener

- So load cannot be effectively shared between adhesive and fastener
- However:
o Bonding can alleviate local stresses in fastener
o Fasteners provide in plane load path and through thickness reinforcements, so can
contain damage instead of letting it spread and cause failure due to disbanding in
adhesive layer
o Fasteners can be used at end of lap joint to reduce peel stresses

CHAPTER 12 – AIRCRAFT APPLICATIONS AND DESIGN ISSUES

Applications of Glass-Fibre Composites

- Radomes, due to excellent transparency to radar signals

- Helicopter components, rotor blades, spars, body panels.

Fixed Wing Civil Applications

- High strength, low weight, great fatigue resistance

- However, sensitivity to impact damage, low through thickness strength and high costs inhibit
use
- Costs can be reduced with more cost-efficient manufacturing methods, like RTM and
pultrusion.
- Reduces airframe assembly costs (less fasteners and parts etc.)

Fixed Wing Military Aircraft

- Low radar detection

- Large amount of composite use
- Most of fuselage is composite
- For radar absorption, honeycomb structure is used with composite skins. Radar waves
penetrate into honeycomb structure and get absorbed, rather than being reflected.
However honeycomb has issues with moisture absorption, leading to degradation in
mechanical properties

Rotorcraft Applications
 - For blades, need to resist tension from centrifugal forces, shear from torsion and bendning.
- Use of honeycomb:
o Problem is moisture ingress into core
o Causes corrosion and bond separation in Aluminium honeycomb
o Cause de-bonding due to water freezing and expanding at high altitude
o Want to use sealant or films and adhesives such to protect honeycomb structure
from moisture absorption
o More prone to impact damage
o Can used closed cell foam cores, but they have low melting temps
o Great bending resistance and extremely light

General Composite Adv

- Through thickness properties can be improved with z-pinning etc.

- Reduces part count and allows for fabrication of very large components
- Tailer the design through orientation of fibre in direction of load
- Optimise structural performance

Static strength of CFRP components

- Significantly higher static strength than Al alloys

- However, they are brittle, so can not redistribute loads at structural features such as
fastener holes
- Don’t have a plastic zone to slow down crack growth and redistribute stress like ductile
metals
- The more fibres orientated at 0 degrees, the higher the stress concentration factor
- Adding +-45 degree fibres reduces stress concentration factor
- Also have low bearing strength, so quasi-isotropic laminates used in areas of bolted joints to
ensure there are 0 degree fibres to support bearing loads, regardless of load direction
- Bonded joints are better structural solution for composites. Bonded joints are hard to join
thick composites

Through thickness strength

- Much lower than that of metals.

- Joints, tapers and ply drop-offs give rise to significant through-thickness or peel stresses
which can result in delaminations

Manufacturing Defects

- Resin-rich regions, resin-dry regions, fibre misalignment, porosity, foreign materials,

delaminations
- Can occur during assembly. Damage from drilling holes, handling damage, manufacturing
defects

Impact Damage

- Horizontal upwards facing surfaces need to be prone to hail damage.

- Surfaces exposed to maintenance work need to be tolerant from impacts of tools
- Structure must demonstrate acceptable strength margin for BVID as this might not be
detected for sometime.

Damage growth Prediction

 - No damage growth allowed under cyclic loading for safe life structures.

Bird Strikes

- In composite fan blades and leading edges, it must be demonstrated that a bird strike will
not impair safe continued flight and landing.

Damage Tolerance Improvements

- Use tougher matrix

- Through thickness stitching or reinforcements
- More +- 45 degree plies

Elevated Temps and Moisture exposure

- Moisture absorption reduces mechanical properties and glass transition temp

- Thermoplastics absorb less moisture than thermosets, but soften at elevated temperatures
- Moisture plasticises matrix-reducing stiffness at elevated temperature, softening the matrix.
This reduces shear and compressive strength.

Lightning effects

- Lower electrical conductivity than Al alloy

- Use metal, bronze, copper or Al mesh or foil co-bonded with carbon fibre malaminate. Mesh
must make direct contact with carbon fibre material to be effective
- Current will gravitate to points of high conductivity suh as fasteners, so there should be good
electrical contact between mesh and fastener. Otherwise buening around fasteners will
occur.

Design methodologies

- Elastic properties deduced from coupon tests and laminate theory.

- This used to calculate strains or vibrations using standard techniques

CHAPTER 13: AIRWORTHINESS

- “safe to meet the operational needs of the used”

- Under static loading, composites have linear elastic behaviour and extremely sensitive to
stress concentrations.
- Metals exhibit plastic behaviour via a plastic zone and are not notch sensitive
- Composited degrade in certain operating environments
o Reduction in properties through moisture absorption (humid env)
o Reduction in properties due to high temps (glass transition temp can be reached)
o Moisture softens matrix resin, reducing composite properties dependent on resin.
Also seeps into cracks and can cause the cracks to increase in size via chemical
reactions

Certification of Airframe structures:

- Static strength
o DLL: no failure or unacceptable deformations. Usually the max load anticipated in
service
o DUL: no failure, although permanent deformation possible (=1.5*DLL)
 - Fatigue Strength
o Safe life: no cracking that can lead to failure should occur in the life of airframe
o Fail safe: Structure must be damage tolerant. So cracks can occur, but they will grow
slowly and not cause failure for the fll life of the structure or will not cause failure
before planned inspection. Or cracking can occur but won’t reduce strength beelow
acceptable level before it’s detected. Can use alternative load paths for this, where if
one load path fails, load is redistributed to the other laod paths.

Damage tolerance req

- Strength wont fall below an acceptable level (1.2*DLL)

- Critical damage must be a size that can be detected with a high degree of probability.

Durability/economic requirement:

- For the life of the airframe, damage requiring costly repairs will not occur due to fatigue or
corrosion. Not a regulatory airworthiness req mandated by airworthiness authority

Tests

- Coupon
o Generate generic material database (100’s of tests)
o Material A and B allowables
o Allowable values measured at critical temp/moisture conditions and room temp
o Provide knockdown factors
- Structural elements
o More complex than coupon, so more costly and less number of tests (50)
o Generate generic failure data base
o Represent all failure modes
o Check calculation rules
- Structural Details
o More complex than elements, so more costly, less tests (10)
o Check damage tolerance
o Confirm allowables at worst environmental conditions
o Open and filled hole tension and comp and bolt bearing
o Out of plane loading
- Sub comp
o More complex and costly than details. Less test (4)
o Check for unexpected failure modes
o Compare with element and detail tests
- Component
o More complex and costly than sub-comp. Less tests (2)
o Check strain levels against failure strains
o Demonstrate airworthiness compliance
- Aircraft
o Most complex, most expensive, usually only 1 or 2 tests
o Check strain levels
o Demonstrate airworthiness compliance
Static strength allowables

- A-allowable: value achieved by 99% of population at 95% confidence. Use for materials with
low scatter, such as airframe alloys as it offers greatest MoS
- B-allowable: value achieved by 90% of population at 95% confidence level. Used where
scatter is large, thus used for composites due to relatively high scatter on strength

Fatigue Allowables

- Coupons and elements tested under constant amplitude and under spectrum loading of
expected in-service loads.
- Tests also done at elevated temps with coupons moisturised
- Knockdown factors from static allowables is usually enough to account for in-plane strength
degradation via static loading

Damage Influence

- Reduction in strength allowables caused by impact damage must be quantified

- When impact damage located between two stiffeners, failure can occur in two stages if the
damage exceeds a threshold. First being rapid growth of damage to the stidffener, followed
later by failure of the stiffeners. Damage inflicted at a stiffener run-pout can result in early
loss of the stiffener

Structural detail and sub-component tests

- Used to develop non-generic data related to specific design

- Tested with knockdown factors applied from coupon tests
- Tested to failure in most extreme environmental conditions
- Develop representative moisture in composite, depending on thickness this could take
several weeks to several months

Full scale tests

- usually at ambient/dry conditions

- done to validate FE model
- measures strain
- can use higher loads at room temperature to simulate more extreme environmental
conditions

Proof Test

- Test at slightly above DLL to check if any damage has occurred

Demonstration of fatigue strength

- Full scale tests

- Check for through thickness failure modes
- Main verification of fatigue performance is based on structural detail and sub component
and possible components tests in humid environments with temperature cycling
- Reduce testing for excessively long periods by load enhancements. Elevate loads to a certain
amount so you only have to test over 1 lifetime. If this load is too severe on certain parts of
structure, can use less force and test over 2 or 3 lifetimes.

Demonstration of damage tolerance

 - Done on full scale tests involving residual strength tests conducted after several lifetimes of
fatigue cycling
- Damage then deliberately inflicted on certain areas and limit load testing is performed
- Provided no failure, damage is repaired and fatigue cycling is continued for 1 or 2 lifetimes
- Article then tested to failure (DUL)

Impact damage

- Vertical surfaces less prone to horizontal surfaces, especially if theya re high up

- Top horizontal surfaces prone to damage from dropped tools and hail
- Bottom prone to damage from runaway stones and burst tires

FRACTURE PROCESSES

- Fracture is a process which causes initiation and growth of a crack, which can cause the
material to break at a stress below its UTS.
- Cracks produced during processing of aerospace material and manufacture of aircraft
- Defects in aircraft include delamination cracks, interfacial cracks, voids and dry spots
- Cracks can initiate in regions of high stress in material
- Cracks can grow due to overstressing, fatigue cycling, corrosion damage during operation of
an aircraft, leading to catastrophic damage, bird impacts, lightning, hail etc.
- To minimise inspection costs, more damage tolerant structural materials needed, which
resist crack growth
- Damage tolerance is the ability for a structure to stay in service and operate safely within
the presence of cracks or other damage.

Modes of fracture

- Ductile fracture processes

o Starts at an existing flaw, stress immediately ahead of crack tip is much higher than
that of the of the nominal applied stress
o The plastic zone is the region between the crack tip and the point on the crack
where the stress reaches the yield strength.
o Crack will only grow within the plastic zone
o Size of plastic zone dependent on yield strength of material, applied stress level and
loading conditions
o Formation of plastic zone absorbs energy, resisting crack growth. Stress needed to
initiate crack growth in ductile materials is lower than stress required for crack to
grow. So applied stress needed to allow crack to grow increases as crack gets larger
o Essentially, the larger the crack becomes, the more energy required to make it
longer
o Cracks can form from voids, dislocations, impurities, microcracks
o Crack which grows through grains is transgranular
o Crack which grows along grain boundaries is intergranular

- Brittle fracture
o Little to no plastic deformation at crack tip
o Size of plastic zone is extremely small.
o Force needed to grow crack decreases as it gets longer
 o Rupture of interatomic bonds ahead of crack. Provides a fracture surface that can be
close to atomically flat, called the cleavage fracture

- Fracture of composites
o Don’t have a plastic zone
o Dependant on microstructure of composite and loading direction
o In plane fracture
 Involves cracking in direction normal to fibres
 More resistant to crack extension than initerlaminar
 Amount of energy required to grow crack in-plane much higher than that of
interlaminar
 In-plane toughness is higher than that of the fibre or polymer on their own.
This is due to crack growth being resisted by various failure processes that
occur near the crack tip and along the crack wake
 Involves ccrack extension by plastic deformation and rupture of polymer
matrix and failure of fibres. As two faces of crack separate, fibres can pull
out.
 Crack tip is often deflected along fibre direction, as it follows weak
interfaces between fibres and matrix. These splitting cracks reduce crack
growth of the main crack
 Fibre failure and fibre pull out absorb greatest amount of energy and
provide greatest resistance against in plane fracture, whereas failure of
polymer and fibre-matrix slitting results in less resistance
o Interlaminar
 Cracking parallel to fibres
 Cracking in fibre direction between ply layers (delamination fracture). Crack
grows in polymer rich regionds between plies.
 Low amount of energy needed for crack growth
 Ointerlaminar fracture occurs easier

Stress concentration factor

- Cracks initiate and grow from high stress concentrations.

- Stress concentration factor is the magnitude of local stress at stress raiser to applied stress
- Stress at edge of stress raiser much higher than applied
- Because stress that would normall be supported by material where stress raiser occurs is
concentrated at the edge.
- Only valid for elastic stress conditions
- For composites, dependent on elastic modulus at different directions
- Stress conc high when all fibres aligned with load direction
- Reduce stress concentration by increasing percentage of +-45 degree plies and other off-axis
plies in composite. This increases shear modulus and brings down Ex/Ey
- Composite with all +-45 degree plies has lowest stress conc factor of 2. But also lowest
strength
MANUFACTURING OF FIBRE POLYMER COMPOSITE MATERIALS

Carbon fibres: production, structure and properties

- Have better fatigue and carrion properties than any metal

- Do not soften or melt when used for high temp apps in carbon-carbon composites
- Lose strength at high temp via oxidisation
- Thermal insulation tiles, aircraft brake pads, rocket nozzles
- Forming Process:
o Before production, PAN filaments stretched into long thin filaments, causing them to
align along filament axis, increasing stiffness of carbon after processing. Greater the
stretch, stiffer the fibre.
o Pretreated at 200-300 degrees in air for oxidisation
o Undergoes carbonisation at 1500 – 2000 degrees in an inert atmosphere, leaving
carbon content of 93-95%. Removes non carbon atoms from PAN molecules
o Changes molecular structure to graphite sheets stacked parallel to one another in a
regular pattern aligned along fibre axis (this gives high stiffness).
o Peak strength is heating at 1500-1600 deg C. (3500 to 6000 MPa)
o Graphitisation after carbonisation used to produce HM fibres (2000 to 3000 deg C).
Higher temp increases orientation along fibre axis and increases stiffness (350 – 450
GPa).
o Control surfaces need high stiffness. Fuselage and wings require high strength and
stiffness.
o Turbostratic fibres are highly crumpled graphite sheets. Giving fibres high strength.
o Stiffness is determined on length or straightness of graphite ribbons. The more
aligned and straighter they are towards fibre axis, the stiffer the carboon.
o Strength determined by surface flaws.
o Sizing agents can be used to reduce friction damage between fibres.

Glass Fibres

- Used apringle in aircraft due to low stiffness

- Low elastic modulus
- Low dielectric properties, so have good transparency to radar waves, thus used in radomes
- Used in internal fittings
- Isotropic fibre properties

Aramid fibres

- Used for impact resistance

- Absorb large energy during fracture, used for ballistic protection
- Good dielectric properties – radomes
- Good vibration damping characteristics, so used in helicopter engine casings to prevent
vibrations from rotor blades reaching cabin
- Anisotropic. Strong in fibre direction due to strong covalent bonds. Weak in nonfibre
direction due to weak hydrogen bonds
- Poor compression strength. Prone to microbuckling in compression
- Absorb large amounts of water
Prepregs

- Accurate control of fibre volume content

- High fibre volume content
- High quality straight composites with no crimp
- Produced from solution dup. Resin dissolved into solvent of soliwds with concentration of
40-50%, and fibres then passed through solution and get a thin layer of resin, and then
pressed into prepreg sheets
- After being produced, it is partially cured to a semi-solid state. Too hard to flow, but soft
enough to be pliable and flexible
- B stage cure must be stored at low temps to prevent curing (-20 deg).

Dry fabrics

- Lower material cost

- Infinite storage life
- No need to be stored in freezer
- Better formability into complex shapes
- Most common are plain woven, twill and satin
- Woven fabrics
o Contain fibres in warp and weft directions
o Each warp tow alternately passes over and under each weft tow
o Causes waviness and crimp, reducing stiffness and strength and leading to
microbuckling. Max structural performance achieved when fibres are absolutely
straight and in-plane
- Twill and satin have less waviness than plan weave, so have better mechanical properties
- Non-crimp fabrics
o Multiple layers of straight tows orientated at different angles
o Bound together by through thickness stitches
o High structural performance
- Braided and knitted used when high impact collision resistance needed as they have high
through thickness properties, but have low in-plane mechanical properties

Sandwich composites

- Under bending, skins carry tension and compression

- Core carries shear
- High bending stiffness
- Resistant to buckling, and only small increase in weight
- Used for control surfaces and vertical tailplanes
- Polymer foams being used increasingly instead of Nomex due to superior durability and high
temp properties (PEI and PMI being used).

MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES

Manual layup

- Cutting prepreg to stack, removing backing paper and handstacking onto tool surface
- Slow, labour intensive and inconsistent
- Prepreg laid up by hand onto tool, with fibre plies orientated in load bearing directions.
- Plies need to be symmetric to prevent warping or distortion
 - After being handstacked, then vacuum bagged to remove air between layers. Prepreg stack
sealed in plastic bad which air is removed from using vacuum pump, conforming bag to
shape of prepreg
- Release film and bleeder layer places over stack. Release film prevents prepreg from sticking
to bleeder cloth and bleeder cloth absorbs excess resin during consolidation
- Prepreg consolidated and cured in autoclave

Automated Tape Layup (ATL)

- Used to manufacture carbon-epoxy prepreg for both military and commercial aircraft.
- Used for wing skins, tilt rotor wing skins, stabiliser skins etc.
- Much quicker than manual layup
- Computer controlled head deposits tape onto tool surface as a fast rate and high degree of
accuracy
- AS tape is laid down, head removes backing paper and applies compaction force to prepreg
- Can also apply heat to prepreg to improve formability
- Tape automatically cut by blades within the head when it reaches location where pl
terminates. Lay’s up prepregsin controlled steps with high degree of accuracy
- Consistent shape, thickness and part quality. After ATL is complete, prepreg is consolidated
and cured.
- Capable of producing parts which are flat or SLIGHTLY CURVED
- Automated fibre process better for highly contoured parts

Automated Fibre Placement

- Lay’s up prepreg tows onto a mandrel.

- Prepreg tows fed into fibre placement head which is computer controlled
- During fibre placement, mandrel is rotated so that prepreg is wound into shape of the
component.
- Head moves along rotating mandrel to steer fibres so they follow applied stresses acting on
the finished component in service.
- Head is able to stop, cut the prepreg and change direction and restart until required
thickness is reached.
- Each tow dispensed at a controlled speed to allow it to conform to the mandrel surface,
allowing highly curved components to be produced
- Provides high speed, high accuracy, reduced labour
- Also good structural optimisation

Resin Transfer Moulding

- Moderate size composite components (3m) such as fan blades or ribs etc.
- Closed mould process
- Fabric placed inside cavity between two matched moulds
- Fabric plies stacked inside mould, which is sealed and clamped
- Liquid resin injected by a pump, with resin flowing through open spaces of fabric until
completely filled
- Resin must have a low enough viscosity so that it can flow through small fabric haps.
- After injection, mould is heated to gel and cure the polymer matrix to form a solid
composite part
- Produce composites with high fibre vol % (65%)
 - Issue is that it can be ahrd to completely infuse all of fabric with resin, and can leave dry
spots or voids in composite. To minimise this, can use Vacuum assisted resin transfer
moulding
- VARTM a vacuum-pump used to evacuate air from mould and draw resin through the fabric
- After mould is closed and sealed, vacuum pump extracts air from cavity and resin drawn into
mould via pressure differential created by vacuum

Vacuum Bag Resin Infusion

- Uses open mould

- Lower tooling costs
- Fabrics stack ontop of tool with resin distribution fabric on top
- Stack sealed and enclosed in a vacuum bag
- Vacuum draws air out and consolidates bag to plies
- One end of bag connected to resin reservoir, the other to a vacuum pump
- Resin drawn through tightly consolidated fabric as well as top resin distribution fabric, where
it seeps down into fabric.

Resin Film Infusion (RFI)

- Used to make large structures like stiffened skins and ribs type structures
- Open mould technique aswell
- Film is b stage cured resin
- Film placed at the bottom, top and inbetween fabric layers
- Materials sealed with vacuum bag and air is removed using vacuum pump
- Assembly is cured in autoclave via heat and pressure

Filament winding

- Cylindrical components made by winding continuous fibre tows over rotating or stationary
mandrel
- Wet winding and prepreg winding
- Wet winding
o Passing continuous tows through resin bath before being deposited onto cylindrical
mandrel
- Prepreg winding
o Depositing thin strips of prepreg onto mandrel, similar to ATP
- Feed head rotated around stationary mandrel, or more often, mandrel rotated whilst feed
head passes backwards and forwards along length
- Successive layers of tows laid at an angle until thickness is reached
- Used to produce cylindrical components like pressure vessels, launch tubes.
- Can produce large components

Pultrusion

- Continuous fibre tows pulled from storage spools and drawn through liquid resin bath
- Then pulled through wipers which get rid of xcess resin
- Passes through a collimeter and then a heated diewhich has final shape of component
 - As material passes through die, it is formed into shape whilst resin is cured
- Material must travel through die at a speed to fully cure resin. Too fast and composite is
partially cured, too slow and production rate is affected
- Cured composite leaves die and is cut to a fixed length by a flying saw
- Continuous process. Used for long parts with constant cross section

MACHINING

- Machining for composites often only require trimming to remove excess material from
edges and hole drilling for fasteners
- Composites made to be near net shape
- Usually use water jet cutting because of high cut ccuracy with little edge damage
- Water jet cutting involved use of high pressure stream of water containing hard, tiny
particles that cut through the material by erosion
- Hole drilling of composites requires specialist drill bits
- Often flat two-flute or four-flute dagger drills for carbon-epoxy
- Drilling must be performed using a sharp bit at the correct force and feed-rate, otherwise
material surrounding hole is damaged
- Excessive force causes push down damage, where fibre plies are delaminated ahead of drill
bit
- High feed rate can generate high friction temperatures, overheating polymer matrix and
causing damage due to high thermal conductivity
- Aramid composites difficult to drill without correct bit as fibres have a tendency to fuzz and
fray. Aramid drills have a C type cutting edge that grips fibres on outside, avoiding fraying.

Fibre Polymer Structures

- Reinforcement and matrix in composite are combined but remain in physically discrete
phases when combined into a composite. In comparison, with metal alloys the solute
material dissolves into the solvent, so they are ‘one’.
- Sandwich composites used in lightweight secondary structures requiring high buckling
resistance and flexural rigidity
- Used in helicopters to reduce weight, vibration, corrosion and increase structural
performance
- Used in engines to lower weight, reduced operating and maintenance costs, improved
structural performance, reduced centrifugal force and increasing fatigue life
- Used in spacecraft for lightness, high stiffness and good dimensional stability (low co-eff od
therm exp).

Advantages

- Lightweight: lower density means less weight so greater fuel savings and more economical
aircraft
- Integrated manufacture: Reduction In total amount of parts and fibres
- Structural efficiency: mechanical properties of composites can be tailored by aligning the
fibre reinforcement in the load direction, providing high stiffness and strength where it is
needed
- Fatigue resistance: extremely high fatigue resistance reducing maintenance cost and
extending operational lifetime
 - Corrosion resistance: high corrosion resistance, again reducing maintenance and inspection
costs. Also allows for higher humidity level inside cabin
- Radar absorption properties: high radar absorbing properties, so useful for stealth aircraft
- Heat Insulation: Lower thermal conductivity than metals, so they are good heat insulator.
Heat from engines won’t enter cabin etc.
- Low co-eff of thermal expansion: will give composites dimensional stability

Disadvantages

- Cost: material costs are expensive, aso are tooling costs and manufacturing costs can be
- Slow manufacturing times: using autoclaves for curing slows manufacturing times
- Anisotropic properties: best properties in load direction
- Low through thickness mechanical properties: leds to low impact damage resistance and
damage tolerance in through thickness direction
- Impact damage resistance is low: susceptible to delamination cracking when impacted at
low energeies because of low through thickness strength and fracture toughnes
- Damage tolerance: growth of cracks is difficult to control and predict. Don’t have plastic
zone like with metals. So composites must be overdesigned
- Notch sensitivity: reduction in failure strength due to notches can be greater than that of
metal alloys due to anisotropic properties.
- Temperature operating limit: Composites soften and distort at lower temperatures than
aluminium due to glass transition temp
- Flammability: composite materials are flammable and burn, produce smoke and release
heat when exposed to high temp fire
- Low electrical conductivity: poor conductors of electricity, so can have damage from
lightning strike

MECHANICS

- Mechanical properties of composites is based on load sharing between fibre reinforcement

and matrix
- When a load is applied, it is shared between fibre and matrix. This is only valid whilst in the
elastic region. Load distribution is not the same for inelastic cases.
- Properties of constituent are calculated by average of that of the fibre and matrix.
- Fibre and resin treated separately in the unit cell for micromechanics

Heirarchy based approach

- Unit cell
o Lowest level
o Fibre and resin treated separately
o Uses mircomechanics theory
- Ply
o Next level up
o Outputs of the unit cell are used as input for single ply properties
o Fibre and matrix are still treated separately
o All fibres assumed to be aligned to loading direction
- Laminate
o Properties of ply are used as inputs for laminate calculations
o Fibre and matrix looked upon as ‘one’
 o Analyses multiple ply layers at different fibre angles
o Each ply layer is treated separately
- Structural
o Takes properties from laminate level and uses it as inputs for structural analysis
o Analysis composite as a single orthotropic material with geometrical features of final
component
o Used to predict stiffness, strength and other properties of final composite structure
o Usually done via FEM or other numerical methods

Longitudinal Youngs modulus

- Assume iso-strain conditions

- So fibre and matrix experience same strain
- Use rule of mixtures
- Assumes Vf+Vm = 1, so no voids present
- Accurate between Vf range of 0.2-0.7

Transverse Youngs Modulus

- Composite amterials designed to ensure load is acted parallel to fibres

- Load should not be calculated in antifibre direction (through thickness or transverse)
- Transverse modulus is majorly a function of matrix strength
- Fibre does not contrifute much to transverse modulus
- Strain is not uniform when composite is loaded in transverse direction. Due to large elastic
modulus difference, strain distributed unevenly.
- Halpin-Tsai accounts for this

Effect of fibre orientation on young’s modulus

- Young’s mod much higher when loaded in longitudinal direction than anti-fibre direction. So
young’s modulus drastically decreases as fibre angle decreases from 0 to 90 (for UD). As
fibre angle is increased, matrix contributes more to overall stiffness. Shear modulus is max at
45 degrees, and is the same value at 0 and 90. Young’s mod falls by nearly 80& from 0 to 30
degrees.
- Due to this, UD should not be used in aircraft
- [0,90]: max at 0 and 90 (half of that of UD), and min at 45
- [quasi]: max at 0,45,90 (slightly more than half of that of [0,90] due to contribution of +- 45
- Fibre arrangement must be symmetric to avoid warping

Longitudinal strength

- Dependent on fibres
- Variable because of surface flaws and defects
- Cracks created through handling and production
- Sizing agents can be used to protect from surface flaws and minimise sliding friction
- Fracture always occurs at largest flaw, and other smaller flaws have no influence on strength
- Micromechanics doesn’t accurately model tensile strength, uses averaging technique
- Fibres with lowest strength are first to break in a composite
- As tension force is increased more and more fibres break until total filure happens
- Fibres begin to break at threshold level
- Design load limit is well below threshold level
 - Shear lag
o When fibre breaks, it still carries load through the matrix. The matrix transfers load
from one fibre to the other. As applied load increases, strain increases and load
transfer gets less. Without shear lag, longitudinal tensile strength would be lower
than it actually is

Transverse tensile strength

- Much lower than that of longitudinal

- Determined by matrix
- Reason for poor impact damage resistance
- Can use sizing compounds to promote strong adhesive bonding to increase through
thickness strength
- Controlled by failure strength of interface between fibres and matrix
o This is affected by stress concentrations at interface

Effect of fibre angle on tensile strength

- Mirrors that of longitudinal modulus, max at 0, min at 90

- Can be calculated by many ways
- 3 failure modes
o Mode I: tensile rupture of fibre at small angles (<5 deg)
o Mode II: shear failure of matrix or interface between 5<45-60 deg
o Mode III: failure occurs by transverse tensile fracture at high angles (>45-60)

Longitudinal compressive strength

- Different to that under tension due to different behaviour

- Most common failure modes are microbuckling and fibre kinking
- Microbuckling
o Involves out of plane buckling of fibres over a small region
o Matrix stretched and compressed in an out of plane manner
o Shear buckling. Compressive stress increases as fibre vol fract increases
- Kinking
o Localised out of plane rotation and fracture of fibres
o Occurs from local buckling instability arising from defects such as voids, or free ends
which don’t have lateral restraint under compression loading
o Instability allows fibre to rotate in very small region towards defect or free edge
o Amount of rotation increases with increasing compressive strain
o As fibres rotated, surrounding polymer matrix is plastically deformed by shear stress
generated by rotation
o Eventually, fibres rotate at enough of an angle to break over a small length (called a
kink band)
o Once fibres fail by kinking, other fibres are overloaded and also fail by kinking
o Once this is propagated through the whole composite, total failure has occurred
o Brittle fibres have well defined kink plane
o Compressive strength for kinking decreased by increasing fibre misalignment angle
o Compressive strength for kinking increases by increasing shear yield stress

Moisture absorption
 - High humidity and warm temperature in tropics cause hygrodthermal ageing
o This is when rate of moisture is increased and material deterioration is accelerated
- Absorption usually occurs via diffusion of water molecules through polymer matrix.
- Moisture also absorbed through fibre-matrix interfacial region
- Carbon and glass fibres do not absorb moisture, but organic fibres like aramid can absord
significant amounts of moisture
- Cause plasticisation in matrix, reducing stiffness and strength (reversible, properties will
come back once composite is dried out)
- Reduces glass transition temp, thus reduces maximum operating temp
- Break down polymer chains via chemical reaction, reducing mechanical properties
- Also seep into surface cracks and flaws and increase size
- Makes nomex soft, corrodes aluminium (use closed cell foam)

UV radiation

- Destroys chemical bonds in epoxy resins, and degraded material removed from surface by
wing and rain
- Breaks down aramid\protect by using uv absorbant paint

FATIGUE

Types of fatigue

- Cyclic stress fatigue: most common, due to repeated application of loads

- Corrosion fatigue (for metals)
- Fretting fatigue: deterioration by small scale rubbing movements. Occurs in loose joints,
bolts etc.
- Acoustic fatigue: caused by high frequency fluctuations in stress caused by noise. Eg. Jet or
propeller noise
- Thermal fatigue: fluctuation in stresses induced by the thermal expansion and contraction of
materials owing to thermal cycling (repeated heating and cooling)

Fatigue Stress

- Fatigue caused by repeated fluctuating loads

- These loads can cause cracking in metals and composited that can lead to completefailure if
left unrepaired
- Fuselage needs to withstand low cycle fatigue loads (from cabin pressurization) and wing
needs to withstand high cycle fatigue loads (due to gusts and manoeuvres)
- Highly variable cyclic stresses called spectrum (for wing)
- Constant cycles called constant amplitude fatigue stresses (for fuselage)
- Fully reversed fatigue loading requires tension and compression within single cycle
- When max stress below endurance limit, material can endure an unlimited amount of load
cycles
- This is a desirable as it gives infinite life if below a certain stress
- Carbon-fibre/epoxy, titanium, steel all have endurance limits
- Aluminium and magnesium don’t
- Steady crack growth in stage II
Fatigue in composites

- Fatigue damage can occur in many locations throughout composite, rather than at single
dominant crack like in metals
- Composites fail progressive through a series of cracks and damage events, rather than
through one main crack
- At high fatigue stress and short life, fatigue damage dominated by fibre breakage
- At intermediate stress – matrix crack, fibre-matrix debonding, delamination cracks, fibre
breakage also occurs but more slowly, so life is prolonged
- At lowest stress, you get infinite life as it is below endurance limit. Determined by fatigue
limit of polymer matrix
- Boron/Epoxy has best tensile fatigue stress, then carbon fibre
- Glass fibres have lower fatigue properties due to low stiffness. Boron more stiff than carbon
- Unidirectional has best fatigue strength, then cross ply, then quasi, and finally +-45
- Fatigue damage in composites occur due to both tension and compression. Only occurs due
to tension in metals. T-C most severe, then C-C and then T-T
- Strength stays constant over fatigue life and then suddenly falls near the end
- Stiffness initially reduces by a little, then stays constant, and then falls just after strength
falls
- This is because composite tends to break near end of fatigue life
- Fatigue life increases with strength and stiffness. So hard to improve as max fibre vol fract
already being used. Can increase number of plies in 0 degrees, but then it wont be able to
take loads from different directions, so wont be useful in aircraft structures
- HM carbon fibres best for high fatigue resistance
- Highest stiffness = greatest fatigue resistance
- Fatigue life reduced when frequency is above 20 Hz, because heat builds up in material at
high frequencies and then softens the polymer matrix. Fatigue of metals not affected by freq
until extremely high levels, rarely encountered in aircraft

IN PLANE AND INTERLAMINAR FRACTURE

IN PLANE FRACTURE

- Requires more energy than iterlaminar. So it is preferred failure mode

- Failure modes in-plane include: fibre breaking, fibre pullout and splitting
- Higher toughness than fibre or polymer by its own. Due to crack growth being resisted by
various failure processes that occur near crack tip and along crack wake (crack splitting and
preventing main crack from extending. Then fibre pull out and then fibre failure).
- In-plane fracture involves crack extention by plastic deformation and rupture of polymer
matrix and failure of fibres
- Fibres can fail at a distance away from flaw where strength is low
- As crack grows its tip is deflected along fibre direction due to weak interfaces between fibre
and matrix. This produces splitting cracks that can grow many millimetres from crack path.
- Main crack repeatedly deflected at fibre/matrix interfaces into splitting cracks, thus resisting
crack extension

INTERLAMINAR FRACTURE
- Much less energy required to cause interlaminar failure
 - Low inteterlaminar fracture strength is a reason why impact damage of composites is so
weak.
- Crackin occurs in fibre direction between ply layers, known as delamination fracture
- Results from delamination cracking

The certification of structural and engine materials is one of the most important issues with the
testing and evaluation of new aircraft. Certification is also performed when new materials are
used in major structural refits of existing aircraft, usually for life extension. Certification is
essential to ensure the materials are safe, reliable, durable and functional in their structural
application. New and improved materials cannot be introduced into aircraft without thorough
analysis, testing and evaluation. A rigorous engineering assessment of the structural materials
must be undertaken and passed before they are certified to use on aircraft and helicopters. The
certification assessment involves mechanical and environmental (durability) testing of the
material together with computation analysis using finite element modelling and other analytical
methods. Aircraft certification is a complex, expensive and time-consuming process.

The certification procedure is often represented by the testing pyramid shown in the figure
below. Also called the “building-block” approach, this method is widely used by the aerospace
industry to establish mechanical property data, property knock-down factors, and validation of
critical design features for structures. Certification begins at the bottom of the pyramid.
Mechanical properties of the material are determined by a series of tests at the “coupon level”,
which means sample sizes about 100-200 mm long and 10-50 mm wide. Coupon tests are
performed to determine basic property data, such as Young’s modulus, strength, fracture
toughness, fatigue life and so on. A large number of property tests are performed to obtain a
statistical database (A- or B-basis allowables). The coupon tests are carried out under a
standardised set of conditions which specify test parameters such as the sample size and loading
rate.

After the mechanical and environmental properties of the materials have been determined by
an exhaustive series of coupon tests, the structural and environmental properties of aircraft
components built using the materials are then measured by more testing at a larger scale. As
shown in the certification pyramid, structural elements, details and sub-components that
represent increasingly complex and more complete sections of the final aircraft are tested. The
final component (e.g. wing or fuselage) is constructed of different sub-components which in
turn are assembled from many structural details which contain a large number of elements. The
elements, details and sub-components contain structural design features not present in the
coupon specimens, such as cut-outs, stringers, rib attachments, changes in section thickness,
bolted or bonded connections. Tests that replicate the actual loading on the final component
are performed on the elements, details and sub-components to ensure they comply with the
design specifications.
Testing of the entire aircraft is the final stage of the certification process. The full-scale test is one of
the most important ways of proving how well the aircraft meets its performance requirements. The
test is extremely important because it tests all the components and materials of the aircraft in the
most realistic manner by simulating actual flight conditions. A full-scale structural test is usually
performed on one of the first to four aircraft built. Full-scale tests are also performed on in-service
aircraft that have undergone a major structural design change. Full-scale tests are used to ensure the
aircraft is structurally sound after all the materials, elements, details and sub-components have been
fully integrated. The full-scale test is also important to determine the effect of secondary loading
caused by complex out-of-plane loads, which may not be determined in earlier testing. Such loads
arise from eccentricities, stiffness changes and local buckling which may not be fully predicted or
eliminated in design nor represented by the structural detail specimen. Another important aspect of
the full-scale test is the confidence that the aircraft is safe. The full-scale component is tested under
conditions given in the certification specifications to ensure it is fully compliant.

Design building block approach:

- Start with coupon tests: used to determine basically material property data like youngs
modulus, tensile strength etc. and to create a material data base for A nad B allowables. A
and B allowables. These allowables must be established at the most critical environmental
conditions
- After coupon tests, you move to element tests, detail tests and subcomponent tests. These
levels contain design elements not present in coupon tests (such as stringers, ribs etc.), and
tests which replicate actual loading on final component are done to on these levels to
ensure they comply with design specifications.
- Finally, full-scale component tests are done to DUL or to complete failure. They are
important to view the effects of secondary loading caused by out of plane loading which
may not have been predicted at previous levels. Full scale fatigue and damage tolerance
tests are critical to ensure component meets specifications and requirements. Main
verification of fatigue performance will be based on tests further down pyramid.

- Tests that replicate the actual loading on the final component are performed on the
elements, details and sub-components to ensure they comply with the design
specifications.
-