Cyclic Relaxation, Impact Properties and Fracture Toughness of Carbon and Glass Fiber Reinforced Composite Laminates

In this paper, the mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced epoxy laminates are experimentally tested. The relaxation behavior of carbon and glass fiber composite laminates is investigated at room temperature. In addition, the impact strength under drop-weight loading is measured. The hand lay-up technique is used to fabricate composite laminates with woven 8-ply carbon and glass fiber reinforced epoxy. Tensile tests, cyclic relaxation tests and drop weight impacts are carried out on the carbon and glass fiber-reinforced epoxy laminates. The surface release energy GIC and the related fracture toughness KIC are important characteristic properties and are therefore measured experimentally using a standard test on centre-cracked specimens. The results show that carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy laminates with high tensile strength give high cyclic relaxation performance, better than the specimens with glass fiber composite laminates. This is due to the higher strength and stiffness of carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy with 600 MPa compared to glass fiber-reinforced epoxy with 200 MPa. While glass fibers show better impact behavior than carbon fibers at impact energies between 1.9 and 2.7 J, this is due to the large amount of epoxy resin in the case of glass fiber composite laminates, while the impact behavior is different at impact energies between 2.7 and 3.4 J. The fracture toughness KIC is measured to be 192 and 31 MPa √m and the surface energy GIC is measured to be 540.6 and 31.1 kJ/m2 for carbon and glass fiber-reinforced epoxy laminates, respectively.

Consideration of the transient material behavior under variable amplitude loading in the fatigue assessment of nodular cast iron using the strain-life approach

The consideration of realistic load assumptions is important for the fatigue design of highly stressed nodular cast iron components for wind energy application. Especially in case of overloads causing elastic-plastic deformation, residual stresses may have a strong impact on fatigue life. In strain-controlled fatigue tests with constant and variable amplitudes, the influence of overloads on the lifetime was investigated. The overload was applied with the objective to create high tensile residual stresses. During fatigue testing the transient material behavior, cyclic hardening, cyclic relaxation of the residual stresses as well as quasi static creep effects, of the EN-GJS-400-18-LT was recorded and evaluated. To quantify the influence of the transient material behavior on the calculated lifetime, fatigue analyses are carried out with the strain-life approach, both with and without consideration of the transient material behavior. The results show that conservative damage sums are derived if the transient material behavior, especially the relaxation of tensile residual stresses, is neglected.

Prediction of Cyclic Residual Stress Relaxation by Modeling Approach

A new method for prediction of residual stress cyclic relaxation has been developed and implemented in the finite element software Abaqus. The calculated profiles were validated by experimental measurements using X-ray diffraction method. This validated approach is afterward used to investigate the effect of loading path and initial residual stress characteristics on the kinetics of relaxation and the stabilized profile for both cyclic softening and cyclic hardening materials.

Modelling of Cyclic Plasticity and Viscoplasticity of Directionally Solified DZ125 Superalloy: Part I: Estimating the Parameters of Chaboche Constitutive Equations

Cyclic plasticity and viscoplasticity of directionally solified superalloy, DZ125, have been described using the Chaboche unified constitutive model. A set of initial material parameters has been determined utilizing the monotonic, cyclic, relaxation and creep test data of DZ125 at 980°C, while an optimum set of material parameters has been obtained by means of least-square procedure.

Constitutive Modeling for Simulating a Broad Set of Uniaxial and Multiaxial Cyclic and Ratcheting Responses

A set of cyclic and ratcheting experimental responses obtained under proportional to various degrees of nonproportional loading cycles are simulated using the modified Chaboche model in its rate-independent and rate-dependent forms. Features of the modified Chaboche nonlinear-kinematic hardening model needed for simulating cyclic hardening-softening, cyclic relaxation and ratcheting responses under uniaxial and multiaxial loading are elaborated. Significance of “rate-dependent” and novel “back stress shift” modeling features in improving the hysteresis loop and ratcheting rate simulations are demonstrated. Influence of the isotropic and kinematic hardening parameters in improving the multiaxial ratcheting response simulation by the modified Chaboche model are illustrated.