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Composite Structures: Zlatan Kapidz Ic, Hans Ansell, Joakim Schön, Kjell Simonsson
Composite Structures: Zlatan Kapidz Ic, Hans Ansell, Joakim Schön, Kjell Simonsson
Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Available online 22 January 2016
Keywords:
Carbonepoxy
Thermally induced load
Fatigue bearing failure
Variable amplitude loading
a b s t r a c t
Hybrid structures that contain compositealuminium interfaces tend to develop internal loads at
elevated temperatures. In long bolted joints, the thermally induced bolt loads are superimposed onto
the mechanically applied load and can induce a biaxial bearing load state. This paper presents an experimental and numerical study of the bearing fatigue failure of carbonepoxy laminate specimens, exposed
to uniaxial and biaxial variable amplitude loading at 90 C. A specifically designed experimental rig was
used, where both the mechanical and the thermally induced bolt loads were applied by means of
mechanical load actuators. A fatigue model based on the kinetic theory of fracture for polymers, which
was previously implemented for constant amplitude loading, is expanded to account for the variable
amplitude load history. The results suggest that the biaxial loading gives a longer fatigue life than the
uniaxial loading for the same maximum peak resultant force. This result can be utilized as a conservative
dimensioning strategy by designing biaxially loaded joints in terms of maximum peak resultant bearing
load using uniaxial fatigue data.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Aircraft structures consisting of aluminium alloys and carbon
fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites build up internal stresses when exposed to elevated temperature. The stresses develop at
the material interfaces due to the difference in the thermal expansion properties of the constituent materials. Aircraft structure
components are commonly joined along long, bolted installations
which are known to be fatigue sensitive. Depending on the joint
length, the thermally induced bolt loads at these sites might be
of significant magnitude and should therefore be considered.
Moreover, when the thermally induced bolt load and the mechanical bolt load are not parallel to each other, a biaxial bearing load
state is created in the joint, where the two applied load components also vary with different frequencies and sequences. Normally, the fatigue performance of typical structural joints is
characterised for uniaxial loading and there are no standard test
procedures that take into consideration the biaxial loading. In
structural testing of large aircraft components, it is costly and complicated to apply elevated temperature conditions. There is, there Corresponding author at: Saab AB, SE-581 88 Linkping, Sweden. Tel.: +46 (0)
13183884.
E-mail address: zlatan.kapidzic@saabgroup.com (Z. Kapidzic).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2016.01.064
0263-8223/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
72
affecting the fatigue life. It was also found that the Miners rule
predictions gave unconservative results.
A review by Post et al. [11] classified available fatigue modelling
techniques for composite materials exposed to VA loading into
damage accumulation law techniques, residual strength or stiffness degradation techniques and techniques based on micromechanical properties. A number of models were evaluated in
terms of their predictive capability and the results varied in accuracy over the studied range of materials and spectra. The authors
stated that the VA fatigue life predictions probably will continue
to rely on the empirical phenomenological models, until the fatigue micro-mechanisms are better understood. They also pointed
out that the performance of the most models is usually evaluated
in CA loading or block loading with only few load levels, and in this
case, only for uniaxial fatigue loading of un-notched specimens. In
structural applications, with biaxial stress states and stress concentrations, the models suited for uniaxial loading may therefore
not work as well. Another drawback is that most models require
a substantial amount of material characterisation in terms of constant life diagrams and/or the residual stiffness/strength. There is,
therefore, a need for a modelling technique which is based on better understanding of the physics of fatigue damage mechanisms,
with less need for experimental material characterisation and
which gives accurate predictions for structural applications.
The present paper, expands the CA model from [1], to include
the effects of VA loading. We base the modelling on the work in
[1215], where the basic assumption is that the initiation of the
fatigue damage takes place in the matrix. The matrix stresses for
the uniaxial and the biaxial bearing problem are computed using
the multi-continuum theory [16,17] within a finite element (FE)
code. As in [1], the failure criterion is based on the kinetic theory
of fracture for polymers [1820], where the rate of creation of
the matrix cracks is described as a thermally activated process promoted by the cyclic loading. The advantage of this approach is that
the effects of the ambient temperature, the loading frequency and
the load ratio are naturally included into the prediction model,
which significantly reduces the need for material characterisation
by testing. Another benefit is that the VA loading can be included
in a straight forward manner. So far, the kinetic theory of fracture
has received little attention in the literature concerning composite
fatigue and only a few validating examples are published. It is our
ambition to, through this work, contribute to development and
validation of an effective fatigue life prediction model which takes
into account VA loading.
In the experimental part of this work, the problem of application of thermally induced loads on a bolted structure is simplified
by the development of a test rig where the biaxial loads are applied
by mechanical actuators to small specimens.
th
th
20
40
+45
0
-45
20
80
90
Material: HTA/6376C
Lay-up: [45/0/90]6S
tply = 0.13 mm
t = 6.24 mm
240
Specimen
Furnace
th
th
73
load
th
time
to a surrounding steel frame, Fig. 4. The same hydraulic hose supplied pressure to both horizontal actuators, assuring that they
exerted the same force on each side of the specimen. The steel
frame was suspended by chains and springs and was free to move
in all directions, thus no resulting horizontal force was applied on
the vertical load frame.
Totally 18 specimens, 9 in uniaxial- and 9 in biaxial loading,
were tested until failure. Prior to application of the mechanical
load sequence, the biaxially loaded specimens were subjected to
the constant horizontal force of F th 25 kN, which was maintained
until failure, see Fig. 3. In both load cases, a modified version of the
standard sequence for testing of fighter aircraft wing structure,
FALSTAFF [21], named Short FALSTAFF was used for the mechanical
load, F. Following the findings of [9,10], this sequence was modi-
100
Shfalstaff
Shfalstaff 30%
80
60
40
20
0 0
10
10
10
10
10
Number of exceedances
Ranges, percentage
of maximum peak load [%]
100
Shfalstaff
Shfalstaff 30%
80
60
40
20
0 0
10
10
10
10
10
Number of exceedances
(b) Ranges.
Fig. 4. Experimental set-up.
Fig. 5. Number of exceedances of peak, troughs and ranges in 200 flights of Short
FALSTAFF sequence with 0% and 30% cycle elimination level.
74
4. Modelling
i
peak
where nT 1:58; k is the Boltzmann constant, h is Plancks constant, T is the absolute temperature, U and c are the model parameters referring to the activation energy and the activation volume
respectively, rs is the effective matrix stress history, t is the time
and s is an integration variable. The damage index is initially zero
and when it reaches 1 the material point is considered to have
failed, i.e. a microcrack has formed. In the context of CA, the temperature increase due to the energy dissipation during the cycling
was described by
g
T T 0 wfN Dr2
where T 0 is the ambient temperature, w and g are material parameters which are assumed to be temperature independent, N is the
number of cycles, f is the loading frequency and Dr is the CA effective matrix stress range. The effective matrix stress history in CA
loading was expressed as
rs rm ra sin2pf s p=2
r s
i
for
for
1
2f
< s < 1f
rim1 ripeak ritrough =2; ria1 ripeak ritrough =2; rim2 ripeak
i1
rtrough =2 and ria2 ripeak ri1
=2, see Fig. 6.
trough
where
nt nT 1 exp
Z 1=f
i !!
U
cr s
ds
exp
exp i
i
h
0
kT
kT
i
N
X
kT
i1
5
The summation in Eq. (5) can be done incrementally over the
entire loading history, performing the integration over each cycle
in the order in which they appear in the sequence. We refer to this
i+1
trough
1/f
i
trough
Table 1
Models parameter for HTA/6376C at room temperature (RT) and at 90 C.
U (kJ/mol)
c (kJ/MPa/mol)
w ( C/MPa2s)
RT
90 C
156
0.9
197
2.7
0:304 103
0.143
0:304 103
0.143
100
i
m2
i
m1
50
BFKB
0
BFKB 30%
BFKB 50%
-50
-100 0
10
10
10
10
10
Number of exceedances
Ranges, percentage
of maximum peak load [%]
Z t
kT
U
crs
ds
exp
nt nT 1 exp
exp
h
kT
kT
0
i
a2
i
a1
150
BFKB
100
BFKB 30%
BFKB 50%
50
0 0
10
10
10
10
10
Number of exceedances
(b) Ranges.
Fig. 7. Number of exceedances of peak, troughs and ranges in 200 FLH of the BFKB
sequence with 0%, 30% and 50% cycle elimination levels.
0.55
ent cycles, the temperature is not. To alleviate this difficulty a constant temperature is applied to all cycles within each sequence
repetition of 200 flights and is recalculated, by Eq. (6), at the beginning of the next sequence repetition. If the sequence is repeated
many times, Eq. (6) gives, in a sense, the average temperature
within each repetition.
Both the cycle-by-cycle and the block-by-block method require
the effective matrix stress to be known on each load reversal level.
The stress was computed in the composite specimen by an
FE-program written in MATLAB [22] and described in [1].
Exp. 0%
Exp. 30%
[%]
Exp. 50%
Sim. 0%
min|)
0.5
max(|
max|,
Sim. 30%
Sim. 50%
T0= 20 C
f = 10 Hz
0.45 U = 156 kJ/mol
= 0.9 kJ/MPa/mol
= 0.30410-3 C/MPa2s
= 0.143
0.4
1
2
log(FLH) [hours]
Fig. 8. Comparison of the predictions (Sim.) to the RT strain-life experimental data
(Exp.) from VA tests performed on HTA/6376C laminates with 45=0=903S layup
and a 6 mm hole, using BFKB sequence with 0%, 30% and 50% cycle elimination
levels, from [23].
T i T 0 wfN Dr2av
where
PNseq
Drav
j1
Drj Nj
N seq
350
= 0.5 %
= 0.5 %
340
= 0.45 %
0.8
Cycle by cycle
Block by block
320
T [K]
= 0.45 %
= 0.48 %
= 0.48 %
330
0.6
310
0.4
300
0.2
290
75
109
219
329
439
549
FLH [hours]
(a) Temperature, T.
659
769
Cycle by cycle
Block by block
0
109
219
329
439
549
659
769
FLH [hours]
(b) Damage index, n.
Fig. 9. Predictions of temperature variation and the damage index in the critical point of the HTA/6376C laminate with a 6 mm hole, using BFKB sequence with 30% cycle
elimination level.
76
peak,max
utrough
u
4
3
2
1
0
15
10
x 10
N [cycles]
(a) Uniaxial case, F peak,max = 80 kN.
3
upeak,max
u
2.5
trough
u
uth
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
10
12
14
N [cycles]
see in Fig. 12, that the biaxial loading gives longer fatigue life than
the uniaxial loading for the same rbres;max . An explanation for this is
that the resultant bearing load range is smaller in the biaxial case.
This result implies that using uniaxial data for dimensioning of
biaxially loaded bolted joints, in terms of the maximum resultant
bearing stress, gives a conservative design. Although the conducted
experiments and the analysis work consider only constant thermally induced load, the conclusion must apply to a general variation of it. The model and the experimental program can be
adapted to include variable thermally induced load.
The fatigue model performs reasonably well, considering that it
includes only four parameters which are derived from smooth
specimen CA tests, performed at room temperature and at different
frequency. This is very efficient but it comes with a cost of having
to compute the matrix stresses. Also, the introduction of the temperature variation, due to the cycling, results in a more complex
model, especially for VA loading. An alternative way to incorporate
16
4
x 10
1000
Exp. uniaxial
Exp. uniaxial bolt failure
Exp. biaxial
900
Sim. uniaxial
Sim. biaxial
Miner's rule uniaxial
Miner's rule biaxial
700
b
max
[MPa]
800
T0 = 90 C
f = 2 Hz
U = 197 kJ/mol
= 2.7 kJ/MPa/mol
= 0.304.10-3 C/MPa2s
= 0.143
400
1000
Exp. uniaxial
Exp. uniaxial bolt failure
Exp. biaxial
900
log(FLIGHTS) [ ]
Fig. 11. Experimental results (Exp.) from uniaxial and biaxial tests compared to the
prediction results (Sim.) and Miners rule predictions in terms of the maximum
peak mechanical bearing stress.
[MPa]
500
b
res,max
600
Sim. uniaxial
Sim. biaxial
800
700
600
F peak;max , and the grip displacement, utrough , at the trough that follows immediately after, increase continuously during the cycling,
while their difference, Du, is constant. In the biaxial loading, the
horizontal actuator movement, uth is also increasing to failure. This
softening behaviour is interpreted as the result of continuous fatigue damage accumulation during the cycling. Similar results were
obtained in CA loading [1], where a fractography study also was
performed to confirm this and to study the characteristics of the
T0 = 90 C
f = 2 Hz
U = 197 kJ/mol
= 2.7 kJ/MPa/mol
= 0.304.10-3 C/MPa2s
= 0.143
500
400
log(FLIGHTS) [ ]
Fig. 12. Experimental results (Exp.) from uniaxial and biaxial tests compared to the
prediction results (Sim.) in terms of the maximum peak resultant bearing stress.
77
400
1
390
380
T [K]
0.8
0.6
0.4
370
360
Cycle by cycle
Block by block
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
Cycle by cycle
Block by block
0.2
0
2000
4000
6000
Number of flights
Number of flights
(a) Temperature, T.
8000
10000
Fig. 13. Predictions of temperature variation and the damage index in the critical point of the uniaxially loaded bolted laminate specimen at
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