Simulation of Cracks in Fiber Reinforced Composite Plate

Abstract

Material flaws, pre-cracks and crack initiation due to cyclic loading often lead to undetected crack propagation in commercial structures like aircraft components, automotive parts and computer motherboard. Cyclic loading can make the crack grow large into any shape with an arbitrary orientation, depending on the structure geometry, boundary and loading conditions. Since crack propagation in many cases may lead to catastrophic failure with human and monetary loss as a result, it is important to enable crack growth prediction at all stages of development and during maintenance in order to prevent such scenarios. Micro mechanical approach is used for modelling the crack in composite materials. Crack propagation in a single edge crack plate is carried out by using FEM analysis. 2D model is analysed to determine the crack growth. The crack propagation rate, stress intensity factor and strain energy release rate are predicted by varying the crack length in fiber reinforced epoxy composite using NISA/ENDURE.