Zhang, B. orcid.org/0000-0002-0428-7745, Ali, H., Allegri, G. et al. (1 more author) (2025) An experimental and numerical investigation into tensile fatigue failure of composite laminates containing wrinkles and cut plies. International Journal of Fatigue, 198. 109026. ISSN: 0142-1123
Abstract
Fibre-reinforced polymer composites are generally seen as more fatigue resistant than metals. However, layup features such as discontinuous plies and/or manufacturing-induced defects such as wrinkles, can initiate fatigue damage and reduce the overall performance of composites. Through an extensive experimental programme and an advanced progressive damage model, this paper investigates the influence of defects and features, both in isolation and in combination, on the tensile static and fatigue performance of quasi-isotropic IM7/8552 laminates. The numerical model describes delamination and intralaminar matrix cracking using cohesive elements that follow a mixed-mode static and fatigue formulation. Experiments and modelling correlate well regarding both the ultimate static strength and S-N curves. The ultimate static strength shows a clear decreasing trend in the order of pristine, wrinkle, cut-ply and combined cut-ply & wrinkle. The cut-ply and wrinkle plus cut-ply show a similar influence on the fatigue life; both are more detrimental than wrinkle. The decrease of the fatigue life due to the defects/features can be up to two decades at a loading level corresponding to half of the pristine ultimate strength. This study implies that, for the IM7/8552 material, a wrinkle in a region of terminating plies does not add significant reduction to fatigue life.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Composites, Defects, Experimental data, Fatigue modelling, Tensile loading |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mechanical Engineering (Leeds) |
Date Deposited: | 29 Sep 2025 09:39 |
Last Modified: | 29 Sep 2025 09:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2025.109026 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:232221 |