Failure behaviour of composites under both vibration loading and environmental conditions

The study focuses on the understanding of failure behaviour of composites which are subjected to vibration fatigue under environmental temperature conditions. The study of vibration fatigue failure in composites can be challenging because of the coupling between mechanical and thermal properties. In fact, stiffness distribution and self-heating are typically occurring under vibration conditions. As the problem stands, the sole use of either testing or simulation would not be adequate to understand the failure behaviour fully. This paper will present both an experimental and numerical work, based on a component designed with a ply-drop feature to enhance and localise the damage occurrence. The vibration testing experiments were carried while an environmental chamber was used to control the exposure temperature. Similar experimental conditions are simulated in a finite element multi-physics environment, where the crack opening is modelled by VCCT method. The simulation environment is very challenging because both mechanical (dynamics) and thermal behaviours need to be incorporated to study the failure of a given vibration loading. Both experimental and numerical results will be qualitatively compared.