Fatigue Crack Growth in Adhesively Bonded Joints with Intermittent Impacts

Abstract

The use of structural adhesive joints to join carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) adherends is now well established in the aerospace industry. These joints are subjected to varied load spectra, of which one of the most damaging forms of loading is fatigue with intermittent low energy impacts, which is termed combined standard and impact fatigue (CISF) in this paper. It is seen that the rate of crack growth in impact fatigue is greater than that in standard fatigue for a given value of the strain energy release rate, moreover, it is seen that the fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) in standard fatigue (SF) increases after a block of impact fatigue. In this paper a model is proposed to predict crack growth in bonded joints subjected to CISF. The model is based on numerical crack growth integration (NCGI) with a method of accounting for the accelerated crack growth in SF following IF. The model was seen to provide a good prediction of the fatigue crack growth in CISF.