JOURNAL OF

COMPOSITE
Article M AT E R I A L S
Journal of Composite Materials
0(0) 1–14
! The Author(s) 2020
Fatigue analysis of a composite Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
ring: Experimental and DOI: 10.1177/0021998320925163
journals.sagepub.com/home/jcm
theoretical investigations

Roham Rafiee1 , Faramarz Abbasi1 and Sattar Maleki2

Abstract
The behavior of composite rings against fatigue loading is analyzed. Experimental study is performed to evaluate the
ultimate hoop strength of the composite ring as a requirement before fatigue testing. Then, fatigue tests are performed at
three different load levels. Afterward, progressive damage modeling in the context of continuum damage mechanics is
utilized to theoretically estimate fatigue lifetimes of the investigated rings. The modeling consists of three parts as stress
analysis, damage estimation and degradation of mechanical properties. It is mainly aimed to reduce the required runtime
for the accomplishment of fatigue analysis while the accuracy is at least compromised. Therefore, a manual technique is
adapted for extracting stress components on the ring. Degradation of mechanical properties takes place either through
gradual procedure or sets of sudden laws. The gradual degradation of mechanical properties is performed based on the
damage progression as a function of cycle numbers and stress state. Sudden degradation is done after occurrence of
failure. After reduction of mechanical properties, the model is updated and whole procedure repeats till the whole layers
fail. Finally, the results of fatigue modeling are compared with performed experimental study and a very good agreement
is observed.

Keywords
Composite ring, fatigue analysis, experimental study, progressive damage modeling, damage evolution

are measured. The mentioned test procedure is very

Introduction
Nowadays, the significance and capabilities of compos-
ites have become evident and these materials have
found many engineering applications due to their excel-
lent properties in various industrial sectors. As one of
the main important elements in the infrastructure
sector, composite pipes provide significant performance
advantages over conventional metallic pipes. The bene-
fits of composite piping systems are but not limited to
corrosion resistance, light weight, high strength and
prolonged durability against environmental issues and
mechanical loadings. Therefore, they are increasingly
utilized in oil, gas, water and waste-water transferring
pipelines.
Composite pipes are subjected to cyclic internal pres-
sure during their operation and thus their performance
from fatigue view point is of great importance. The
certification procedure of composite pipes dictates a
series of fatigue tests.1 Known as qualification tests,
the pipe samples are exposed to cyclic internal pressure
at several different levels and cycles to failure
time consuming and also costly because of its destruc-
tive nature. Therefore, simulating fatigue on composite
pipe samples using theoretical modeling can establish a
confidence toward the proper design architecture prior
to conducting qualification tests. Despite the consider-
able efforts given to experimental analysis of fatigue in
composite pipes,2–17 very limited studies have per-
formed theoretical simulation on composite pipes/
rings.18–21 Fatigue lifetime of the buried natural gas
pipe repaired with a composite sleeve was predicted
by Kim et al.18 The fatigue life of the damaged pipe
after occurrence of the delamination was investigated
1
Composites Research Laboratory, Faculty of New Sciences and
Technologies, University of Tehran, Iran
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Quchan
University of Technology, Iran
Corresponding author:
Roham Rafiee, University of Tehran, End of The North Karegar
St. Tehran, Tehran 14399-5594, Iran.
Email: Roham.Rafiee@ut.ac.ir
2 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
based on the stiffness reduction arising from adhesive
damage.18 Rafiee and Eslami employed progressive
damage modeling (PDM) for estimating the fatigue
life of composite pipes under cycling internal pres-
sure.19 The damage evolution was captured using stiff-
ness degradation technique and Taguchi method was
utilized to obtain proper degradation pattern.19 The
developed modeling procedure in Rafiee and Eslami19
was extended to estimate fatigue lifetime of composite
pipe under cyclic internal pressure with variable ampli-
tudes.20 Unlike the normal practice, stochastic fatigue
modeling was conducted treating maximum stress amp-
litude, mean stress amplitude and number of cycles as
random variables resembling random fatigue loading
pattern.20 Shabani et al.21 employed a PDM technique
for extracting fatigue lifetime of a notched composite
ring. A complete set of stiffness and strength degrad-
ation rules were obtained experimentally and fed into
the model.
This research deals with experimental determination
and theoretical estimation of fatigue life in notched
composite rings cut from glass/epoxy filament wound
tubes. The remaining of the paper is organized as fol-
lows. Firstly, experimental fatigue study is carried out
on the composite rings at different load levels. Then,
fatigue simulation is conducted to predict the fatigue life.
The employed fatigue modeling and its involved stages
are explained in detail. The employed fatigue modeling
procedure is categorized under PDM group where stiff-
ness degradation laws account for damage evolution in
the context of continuum damage mechanics. Aiming to
reduce the required runtime for the accomplishment of
fatigue analysis as the main streamline of this research,
the main components of the modeling is simplified while
the accuracy is at least compromised.
Experimental study
Materials and test specimen
A glass/epoxy tube with inner radius of 50.8 mm and
total length of 6000 mm was produced using reciprocal
filament winding process. The mechanical properties of
the utilized glass fiber and epoxy resin are listed in
Table 1. The layup configuration of produced tube
was [543] with the total thickness of 2.8 mm.
Aforementioned winding angles are measured from
the axial direction of the tube. The produced tube
was cured 80 C for 4 h and then post-cured at 120 C
for another 4 h. The filament winding procedure and
also produced tube is shown in Figure 1.
The utilized glass fiber is E386T-E6 direct roving
produced by Jushi company and Araldite LY556
epoxy resin supplied by Huntsman company is used
as the resin system.
Table 1. Mechanical properties of utilized glass fiber and epoxy
resin.
Mechanical properties Glass fiber Epoxy resin
Young’s modulus (GPa) 81 3.5
Shear modulus (GPa) 32 1.25
Poisson’s ratio 0.21 0.35
Strength (MPa) 2000 Tensile: 75,
compressive: 250
Density (g/cm3) 1.15 2.56
Figure 1. Filament winding process and produced tubes.
Twelve ring specimens were cut from produced tube
with the width of 25.4 mm. Circular notches were pro-
vided in two areas placed 180 apart with the radius of
5.2 mm in accordance with reflected dimensions in
ASTM D2290.22 As a result, the distance between the
two notches in the test ring is 15 mm. The geometrical
dimensions of the ring specimens are shown in Figure 2.
Measuring hoop tensile strength
Prior to performing the fatigue test, it is necessary to
determine the hoop tensile strength (HTS) of the rings.
The procedure A reflected in ASTM D2290 is used to
determine the tensile HTS of the rings.22 Known as
split-disk method, the test is performed using an uni-
versal testing machine equipped with split-disk test fix-
ture as shown in Figure 3.
The ring samples were mounted on the split-disk
while the reduced areas are placed at the split in the
fixture. Adjusting the rate of the cross-head movement
at 2 mm/min, the tensile load was applied to the ring
and increased until the failure was observed. The test
was performed on three different ring specimens and
recorded data are presented in Table 2.
Conducting fatigue test
The same testing apparatus used for measuring HTS in
the previous section was used for the purpose of fatigue
testing. A cyclic tensile-tensile load with constant
Rafiee et al.
Figure 2. Geometrical dimensions of the ring specimen.
Figure 3. Split-disk test assembly.
amplitude and stress ratio of 0.1 was applied to the ring
specimens and the number of cycles to failure was
counted and recorded in each test. The experiment
was performed at a frequency of 10 Hz avoiding over-
heating. The maximum of applied stress is chosen as
60%, 70% and 80% of the HTS measured in the pre-
ceding section. For each loading scenario, three ring
specimens were tested. The recorded data of fatigue
test are presented in Table 3.
As it can be seen from presented results in Table 3,
decreasing the level of maximum applied stress,
3
the longer fatigue life of the specimen is observed.
Figure 4 shows the tested sample placed on the fatigue
machine and the composite ring after fatigue-induced
failure under cyclic loading.
Determining fiber and resin volume fractions
The volume fractions of tube constituents were deter-
mined as per ASTM D3171.23 For this purpose, the
specimen was firstly dried, weighed and then burned
in the furnace to remove the resin. Finally, the remain-
ing fibers were carefully separated and weighed and the
required quantities are extracted. The mean values of
fiber and resin volume fractions were measured as 60%
and 40%, respectively.
Theoretical modeling
Theoretical modeling of fatigue is conducted in this
research using PDM technique. Integrating failure cri-
teria, fatigue life models and material degradation
rules, PDM techniques simulate the fatigue damage ini-
tiation and propagation.
Under cyclic loading conditions, the gradual accu-
mulation of fatigue damage can result in a final failure
of the composite parts. In fact, fatigue damage occurs
cycle by cycle, and as the number of cycles increases,
the damage accumulates and growths until that com-
ponent is no longer able to tolerate any more damage
and thus failure occurs. Due to the complexity of fati-
gue damage mechanisms in composites, it is not pos-
sible to directly measure minor damages such as very
small strains and micro-cracks. As an alternative
method, the damage evolution is indirectly monitored.
Namely, the influence of minor damages on physical
quantities such as stiffness and strength can be mea-
sured and used to define damage variables. This strat-
egy of fatigue modeling falls into the category of PDM
techniques.
The procedure of the employed PDM technique in
this research consists of three main parts as stress ana-
lysis, damage estimation and degradation of properties.
The stresses induced in all layers are firstly analyzed.
Afterwards, the stresses are applied to a series of
damage relationships to calculate the damage variable
in each constitutive plies, individually. The material
properties of each ply are gradually degraded based
on the evolution of the damage variable with respect
to the number of cycles. Furthermore, when failure
occurs in any layer, its properties are suddenly
degraded. For this purpose, the model should be able
to simulate the cycle-to-cycle reduction of the proper-
ties of the Uni-Directional (U-D) ply under the multi-
axial fatigue loading. As the number of cycles increases,
the stress analysis is performed for the material with
4 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

Table 2. Results of HTS tests.

Aa A B B Minimum area
Width Thickness Width Thickness of reduced Force Strengthc
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) sectionb (mm2) (KN) (MPa)

1st specimen 14.63 2.63 15.4 2.76 38.48 29.959 389.31

2nd specimen 14.67 2.56 14.46 2.75 37.55 29.152 388.12
3rd specimen 15.12 2.82 15.13 2.81 42.51 31.745 373.33
Average 30.285 383.59
Standard deviation – 8.90
HTS: hoop tensile strength.
a
Points A and B represent the notch locations shown in Figure 2.
b
Minimum area is calculated by multiplying underlined values.
c
Strength is calculated by dividing force to twice the minimum area of reduced section in accordance with procedure A of ASTM D2290.22

Table 3. Results of fatigue tests.

A A B B Section Cycles to failure

Maximum Width thickness width thickness area Force
applied stress (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm2) (KN) 1 2 3 Average Deviation

80% 15.026 2.786 14.876 2.71 82.233 24.553 198 239 290 242.33 46.09
HTS
70% 15.193 2.776 14.836 2.813 83.933 21.93 432 513 536 493.66 54.62
HTS
60% 15.21 2.77 15.11 2.88 85.663 19.176 680 777 1349 935.3 361.5
HTS
HTS: hoop tensile strength.

Figure 4. Fatigue testing machine and failed specimen after fatigue test.

updated properties and the whole process is repeated
until the ultimate failure of the part occurs and the
specimen can no longer bear any more load. The
flowchart of the PDM technique used in this study
for simulating fatigue on the composite ring is shown
in Figure 5 and involved steps are described in the fol-
lowing sections in details.
Stress analysis
Stress components on each ply are required to be
calculated at each stage of cyclic loading. Due to
the geometry and loading conditions of the
investigated ring, the stress components can be
extracted accurate enough using finite element model-
ing. Therefore, at each stage of fatigue modeling,
the finite element model should be called. Fatigue
modeling will therefore be very time consuming
and tedious. In this section, in order to reduce the mod-
eling time, the manual calculation method based on
classical lamination theory (CLT) is employed to
derive the stress components as an alternative to the
finite element method. In other words, it is mainly
aimed to reduce the required runtime for the
Rafiee et al. 5

Figure 5. Flowchart of fatigue modeling through PDM technique. PDM: progressive damage modelling.

accomplishment of fatigue analysis while the accuracy 2 3

is at least compromised. m4 n4 2m2 n2 4m2 n2
Firstly, the layer configurations including the fiber 6 7
6 n4 m4 2m2 n2 4m2 n2 7
angles in each layer, lay-up sequence and mechanical 6 7
6 m2 n2 m2 n2
4 4
m þ n 4m n 2 2 7
properties are defined as the input data of the modeling. 6 7
¼6 2 2  2 7
Following equations are used to calculate fundamental 6 m n m2 n2 2m2 n2 m 2  n2 7
6  3  7
matrices of CLT24 6 m3 n n3 m n mm n 2 n mm n 7
3 3 3
4 5
 3 
n3 m m3 n 3 3
m nn m 2 m nm n 3
X
lastply
  2 3
Aij ¼ Qij n tn Qxx
n¼1 6 Q 7
6 yy 7
6 7 ð2Þ
1 X    2
lastply
 4 Qxy 5
Bij ¼ Qij n Zn  Z2n1 ð1Þ
2 n¼1 Qss
1 X
lastply
   3 
Dij ¼ Qij n Zn  Z3n1 Ex Ex vyx
3 Qxx ¼ , Qxy ¼ ,
n¼1 1  xy yx 1  xy yx
ð3Þ
Ey
where tn is the thickness of the nth layer. Z represents Qyy ¼ , Qss ¼ Es
the position of each layer from the center line of the 1  xy yx
cross section. Qij’s are the members of the stiffness
matrix for each layer the off-axis coordinate system where m ¼ Cosh and n ¼ Sinh. h is the fiber angle in
calculated using the following equations24 each layer. Ex, Ey, Es, mxy and myx are longitudinal
2 3 modulus, transverse modulus, in-plane shear modulus,
Q11 major Poisson’s ratio and minor Poisson’s ratio,
6 Q 7 respectively. The mechanical properties of the layers
6 22 7
6 7 are calculated using the following micromechanical
6 Q12 7
6 7 equations25
6 Q 7
6 66 7
6 7
4 Q16 5 Ex ¼ Ef Vf þ Em Vm
Q26 x ¼ f Vf þ m Vm
6 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

  Ef
1 þ 2Vf 1
Ey ¼ Em ,  ¼ EEmf
1  Vf þ2
Em
Gf
1 þ s Vf 1
Es ¼ Gm , s ¼ GGmf ð4Þ
1  s Vf þ1
Gm

where Ef, Em, Gf and Gm represent fiber modulus,

matrix modulus, fiber shear modulus and matrix
shear modulus, respectively, presented in Table 1. Vm
and Vf represent the volume fraction of resin and fibers, Figure 6. Loading on the investigated ring under split-disk test.
respectively, measured in section Determining fiber and
resin volume fractions. The proper performance of
abovementioned combination of micromechanic rules sections as they separate. The test fixture is designed to
for estimating mechanical properties of composite minimize the effect of this bending moment. Therefore,
rings was previously studied by Rafiee.26 The calculated the stress is overestimated than the real value.
values for mechanical properties of the ply and also According to Figure (6), the values of N and M
components of A, B and D matrices are reported in reflected in equation (5) are calculated as below
Appendix 1.
The following equations are then used to calculate P Ms
N1 ¼ , N2 ¼ N6 ¼ 0, M1 ¼ , M2 ¼ M6 ¼ 0
the strains and bending curvature radius of the 2w w
laminate24 ð7Þ
2 3 2 3
"01 A11 A12 A16 B11 B12 B16 1 Finally, the off-axis strain components induced in
6 "02 7 6A A22 A26 B12 B22 B26 7 each layer is calculated using following equation24
6 7 6 12 7
6 7 6 7
6 "06 7 6 A16 A21 A66 B16 B21 B66 7
6 7¼6 7 "i ¼ "0i þ zKi ð8Þ
6 K1 7 6 B11 B12 B16 D11 D12 D16 7
6 7 6 7
6 7 6 7
4 K2 5 4 B12 B22 B26 D12 D22 D26 5 Having in hand the off-axis strain component of
K6 B16 B21 B66 D16 D21 D66 each layer, the process shown in Figure 7 is performed
2 3 to calculate the on-axis stress of each layer based on
N1
CLT.24
6 N 7
6 2 7 The described calculation procedure in this section
6 7
6 N6 7 assumes constant stress across the width of the ring
6 7
6 M1 7 ð5Þ specimen and do not take into account the stress con-
6 7
6 7 centration near the notch. Moreover, this method
4 M2 5
ignores curvature in the specimen. For instance, the
M6 stress distribution as the output of finite element ana-
lysis is shown for applied tensile force of 1 KN in
where N and M are the normalized force and moment, Figure 8 where the influence of stress concentration is
respectively. The free body diagram and induced inter- clearly visible.
nal force and imposed bending moment are shown in Comparing the results of hoop stress on the investi-
Figure 6 for calculating aforementioned N and M gated ring as the outputs of manual calculation with
components. those reported by finite element analysis, Rafiee and
In Figure 6, the applied force is simplified as a con- Abbasi presented the following relation for correcting
centrated force leading to a conservative estimation. the described manual method as shown in Figure 927
The imposed bending moment (i.e. MS in Figure 7) is
calculated by using Castigliano’s theorem26  max ¼ 2:7 CLT ð9Þ
 
1 1 Comparing the stress in the vicinity of the notch with
MS ¼ PR  ð6Þ
2  far-field stress, they obtained a stress concentration
factor27

It is also worth noting the moment is induced by the  max ¼ Kt  nom ¼ 1:66 nom ð10Þ
change in contour of the ring between the two disk
Rafiee et al. 7

Figure 7. Graphical demonstration of obtaining on-axis stress components from off-axis strains.

Figure 8. Distribution of the hoop stress concentration at notches in composite ring.

Comparing the far-field stress with the value
obtained using described manual method, they
obtained a load magnification factor as below27
 nom ¼ KL  CLT ¼ 1:63 CLT
Due to this fact that the effect of specimen curvature
is not taken into account in CLT, the load magnifica-
tion factor is adopted. In other words, if the analyzed
specimen was flat, the load magnification factor would
not be required to be defined and  nom would be con-
sidered the same as  CLT.
As it can be seen, if the stress obtained by the
ð11Þ manual calculation method is multiplied by 2.7, the
maximum stress will be obtained in the neighborhood
of the notch. So, the described method used in this
study will overestimate the stress values presenting a
conservative approach.
8 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
Figure 9. Schematic illustration of stress distribution in the
notched specimen and stress concentration.
Damage estimation and gradual degradation of
mechanical properties
When a laminated composite is subjected to fatigue
loading, its initial strength is generally higher than the
applied stress level. Therefore, during the first cycles, no
sudden damage is applied to the layers. However, as the
number of loading cycles increases, the material proper-
ties of each layer are degraded. This type of reduction is
called the ‘‘gradual degradation of material proper-
ties.’’ For gradual degradation of material properties
under fatigue loading, a series of laws for damage esti-
mation is required. Increasing the number of cycles, the
level of the damage increases and the properties of the
layer reach to a level that failure is finally experienced.
Gradual degradation of mechanical properties can
be accomplished using either the models where both
reduction in stiffness and strength are considered sim-
ultaneously or the models with a single measure of
damage estimation based on stiffness reduction.
Shokrieh and Lessard28 developed a sophisticated
method called generalized material property degrad-
ation (GMPD) method that reduces stiffness and
strength in all directions. In fatigue cycles, variations
of strength are much less than stiffness variations, so it
is rational to use a single measure of stiffness reduction
to seriously reduce the required runtime of the analysis.
Accordingly, Shokrieh and Zakeri developed a model
called cumulative fatigue damage (CFD) modeling,
which is based on the simplified version of the original
GMPD model and only estimates fatigue life based on
the assumption of stiffness reduction.29 Rafiee and his
colleagues developed an improved version of the CFD
model based on CLT and applied the model success-
fully to predict the fatigue life of a composite tube
under constant pressure19 as well as under internal pres-
sure with variable amplitude, stochastically.30
This model combines a normalized damage estima-
tion model, a normalized residual stiffness model and a
normalized model for number of fatigue cycles to esti-
mate damage. In fact, stiffness and its variations are a
function of three parameters including number of
cycles, stress level and the applied stress ratio. The resi-
dual stiffness in each direction can be calculated for a
U-D ply under arbitrary uniaxial stress condition and
the desired stress ratio from the following equation29
Eðn, , RÞ ¼ ð1  DÞE0 ð12Þ
where E0 is the initial stiffness, D is damage parameter
and E(n, , R) is residual stiffness as a function of the
number of cycles (n), applied stress () and cyclic stress
ratio (R). It has been shown that the amount of normal-
ized damage is independent from stress and is approxi-
mately same for different stress ratios.29 Therefore, only
one damage equation is sufficient to estimate the nor-
malized damage over the all stress range. This equation
is only based on the normalized number of cycles and is
independent from the stress state, however, the residual
stiffness is a function of the applied stress. Therefore,
the following equation was proposed accounting for the
role of damage in the residual stiffness relationship29
D~
D¼ ð13Þ
fð,  ult Þ
where D~ is normalized damage parameter and fð,  ult Þ
is a function of stress state obtained experimentally for
U-D composite specimens. This function is obtained
for the U-D layer made of carbon/epoxy under uniaxial
fatigue loading conditions by Shokrieh and Lessard as
below28
. U-D layer under longitudinal fatigue loading
conditions
fð,  ult Þ ¼ Sm ð1  SÞm1 ð1 þ 3:1mCÞ ð14Þ
Rafiee et al. 9

. U-D layer under transverse fatigue loading . U-D layer under shear fatigue loading condition
conditions
4 3 2
D~ ¼ 335:25N~  1054:9N~ þ 1239:4N~  643:45N~
2m1
fð,  ult Þ ¼ ð1  SÞ ð1 þ 3:1mCÞ ð15Þ
þ 124:73 ð22Þ
. U-D layer under shear fatigue loading conditions

fð,  ult Þ ¼ 2:79Sm ð16Þ The number of normalized cycles (N) ~ reflected in
equations (17) to (22) is calculated by the following
equation28
In these equations, S represents the ratio of max-
imum applied stress to the ultimate strength of material logðnÞ  logð0:25Þ
N~ ¼   ð23Þ
( max = ult ) and m is S(S-1). log Nf  logð0:25Þ
The amount of the normalized damage D~ is related
to the number of normalized cycles N. ~ Examining the where n denotes the number of applied cycles and Nf is
available experimental data shows that from the begin- the number of cycles to failure. Nf is obtained for a U-
ning of cyclic loading (N~ ¼ 0) to N~ ¼ 0:67, the normal- D layer under the desired uniaxial stress state and stress
ized damage grows slowly and almost linearly and then ratio employing the following equation28
increases with higher rate and non-linearly until the
failure occurs (N~ ¼ 1).28 So, this trend can be divided lnða=fÞ
¼ A þ B log Nf ð24Þ
into two phases. Normalized damage equations in lnð1  qÞðC þ qÞ
terms of the number of normalized cycles for different
loading states in the first phase (0  N ~  0:67) are q ¼  m = t
28
expressed as below: ð max þ  min Þ
m ¼
2 ð25Þ
. U-D layer under longitudinal fatigue loading
a ¼  a = t
condition
ð max   min Þ
a ¼
D~ ¼ 0:1493N~ ð17Þ 2

c =t Longitudinal loading
. U-D layer under transverse fatigue loading condition C¼ ð26Þ
t =c Transverse loading
D~ ¼ 0:0361N~ ð18Þ
max and min are the maximum and minimum stres-
. U-D layer under shear fatigue loading condition ses created in the desired U-D layer. t and c stand
for tensile and compressive strengths, respectively.
D~ ¼ 0:3983N~ ð19Þ Equation (24) is valid for tension and compression
modes of loading and for the case of shear loading, it
is rearranged as below28
For the second phase (0:67  N~  1), the relations  
are no longer linear and are in the form of 4th-order lnða=fÞ
log ¼ A þ B log Nf ð27Þ
equations as below:28 ln½ð1  qÞðC þ 1Þ

. U-D layer under longitudinal fatigue loading condition Parameters A, B and f are curve fitting parameters
obtained from the experimental data. These values for
4 3 2 the same glass/epoxy composites used to fabricate the
D~ ¼ 5:788N~  6:8785N~ þ 2:4153N~  0:2654N~
ð20Þ investigated rings in this research are obtained by
þ 0:0061
Rafiee and Eslami19 using Taguchi technique and
reported in Table 4. Since reported normalized life
. U-D layer under transverse fatigue loading condition curves in previous equations belong to carbon/epoxy
composites, they have modified aforementioned
4 3 2 curves for the same glass/epoxy composites used in
D~ ¼ 242:72N~ þ 715:04N~  768:3N~ þ 358:19N~
this study in a manner to obtain minimum difference
 61:22 ð21Þ
between theoretical prediction and experimental data.19
In other words, a generic behavior is estimated for
10 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

Table 4. The normalized life curves values of ‘‘A’’ and ‘‘B’’

coefficients for glass/epoxy composite.19

Loading type B A

Longitudinal loading 0.3097 1.3589

Transverse loading 0.096 0.999
Shear loading 0.466 0.388

glass/epoxy composites based on the available pattern

of decreasing mechanical properties of carbon/epoxy.
Subsequently, normalized life curves have been pro-
duced for glass/epoxy composites. A higher rate of deg- Figure 10. Replacing failed ply with an intact ply with reduced
radation in mechanical properties for glass/epoxy is properties.
recognized for generated normalized life curves in com-
parison with the original trend for carbon/epoxy. f is
also taken as 1.06 in this research. the basis of experimental observations.28 After identify-
It should be emphasized that for the accurate mod- ing the occurrence of the failure in any ply, its mech-
eling, all normalized life curves are required to be anical properties are suddenly degraded using one of
experimentally extracted for the U-D samples made the following rules in accordance with experienced
of the same material used in fabrication of the rings. mode of failure30
Thus, having in hand the stress and strength compo-
nents from explained procedure under section Stress Fiber
analysis, the values of Nf are calculated using equations   breakage
(24) to (27). Then the value of N~ is obtained from equa- Ex , Ey , x , Es intact
! ð0, 0, 0, 0Þfailed ð28Þ
tion (23) and D~ is calculated using one of the equations
(17) to (22), accordingly. Finally, the residual stiffness is Fiber
obtained through equations (12) to (16).   buckling
Ex , Ey , x , Es intact
! ð0, 0, 0, 0Þfailed ð29Þ

Sudden degradation of mechanical properties Matrix

As it has been explained in the previous section, the   tension
Ex , Ey , x , Es intact ! ðEx , 0, x , Es Þfailed ð30Þ
mechanical properties of the composite layers gradually
decrease in terms of number of cycles. Consequently,
Matrix
the properties reach to a level that they cannot bear
  compression
anymore loading and thus the corresponding layer is Ex , Ey , x , Es ! ðEx , 0, x , Es Þfailed ð31Þ

intact
failed. At this moment, the mechanical properties of
the failed ply are suddenly degraded. In other words, Shear
the damaged layer is replaced with an intact layer but   failure  
with reduced mechanical properties. This scenario is Ex , Ey , x , Es intact ! Ex , Ey , 0, 0 failed ð32Þ
categorized under the continuum damage mechanics
context and is schematically shown in Figure 10. As a matter of fact, the stiffness reduction model is
As it was explained before, the damage estimation in turned out into a ply-discount method when failure is
the fatigue modeling is performed based on the single realized.
measure of stiffness reduction. Consequently, the grad-
ual degradation of strength components is not captured
and available failure criteria for composite materials
Termination criteria
cannot be used to identify the occurrence of failure. After degradation of mechanical properties either grad-
For identifying the occurrence of failure, the instant- ually or suddenly, the model is updated and the whole
aneous stiffness is compared with its initial value. loop repeats as the next increment. The procedure
Whenever the ratio of instant stiffness to initial stiffness repeats until all layers experience catastrophic failure
along fiber or matrix ðSE ¼ EE0 Þ and the ratio of instant mode (i.e. fiber breakage or buckling) as the main stop-
applied stress to the ultimate static strength ðult Þ are the ping criterion of the fatigue modeling.
same, it is assumed that the failure takes place. For the Since the mechanical properties of the layers are
case of shear loading, the ratio is considered as 0.68 on gradually degraded during the analysis, the induced
Rafiee et al.
stress level in the layers also decreases. Therefore, it is
very probable that a situation happens while a very
weak material is exposed to a very low level of stress.
Under this circumstance, the introduced method under
section Sudden degradation of mechanical properties for
identifying the occurrence of failure is not able to dis-
tinguish failure and thus the code will never stop. The
ultimate static strain is used as another termination cri-
terion to overcome this difficulty. At each step, the
obtained strain from the analysis is compared with
the static failure strain ("ult ) and if it exceeds that
value, the program is terminated and corresponding
number of cycles is reported as the fatigue life. The
value of the stress at the moment of failure is the
same as the ultimate strength ðult Þ. The ultimate
strength is calculated using Tsai-Wu failure criterion.24
The required initial strength components for Tsai-Wu
criterion are calculated in accordance with Appendix 2.
Tsai-Wu criterion is an interactive rule taking into
account the interaction of different stress components
and also categorized as a simple and fast rule.
Moreover, Tsai-Wu criterion is conservative enough
in comparison with other single-criterion rules for com-
posite materials. Lastly, the ultimate strength is
required to be calculated and identification of the fail-
ure mode is not concerned in this section and Tsai-Wu
failure criterion meets the purpose.
Results and discussion
The described model in the previous section is imple-
mented on the composite rings examined in the experi-
mental study section and the results are compared.
Figure 11. Experimental data and results of modelling.
11
A comparison of the estimated fatigue lifetimes and
measured ones through experimental study is presented
in Figure 11.
It is observed that the present model is able to simu-
late the fatigue behavior of the specimen properly and
estimate the fatigue lifetime accurately enough.
Moreover, the lifetimes in all cases are underestimated
attributed to the conservative nature of the modeling
because of the overestimation of stress analysis.
Considering experimentally measured 1349 cycles at
the load level which is 60% of HTS loading as scattered
data, the modeling is slightly overestimated the fatigue
lifetime for this case as an exception.
The reduction trends of longitudinal, transverse and
shear moduli are shown in Figure 12 for a ply of the
investigated ring in all loading statuses. Comparing all
the trends, it is evident that the shear modulus
decreases significantly and becomes zero, while both
longitudinal and transverse moduli slightly decrease.
The sudden degradation of shear modulus to zero
implies on the occurrence of shear failure mode, while
the other failure modes are not experienced.
Monitoring the trend of strength components also con-
firms the occurrence of shear failure mode, since just
shear strength is suddenly degraded to zero.
It is worth noting that in the specific layup of the
investigated composite ring, the modeling is terminated
by the static failure strain criterion at all applied load
levels. For all stress levels, the values of stiffness are
reduced to such a degree that the matrices reflected in
equation (1) become very small matrices. Thus,
obtained strain values are very large in a manner that
overall strain exceeds the static failure strain.
12
Figure 12. The degradation trends of longitudinal, transverse and shear moduli.
The runtime of the fatigue modeling is about 30 min
on a computer powered with Core i7-7500U processor
running at 2.7 GHz and 12-GB memory.
As it was extensively explained, the utilized model-
ing procedure is carried out replying solely on the
basis of stiffness degradation. The load is transferred
from the layers suffering from stiffness loss to the stif-
fer layers and thus a slower degradation of stiffness is
pertinent to the weaker layers. The weaker layers do
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
not suffer from stiffness loss anymore and as a subse-
quent fatigue failure is identified by the introduced
static failure criterion. Therefore, it is believed that
that the model is limited to the LCF regime, since
strength degradation is not taken into account.
Therefore, the application of explained approach oper-
ating solely on the stiffness degradation is limited to
LCF cases and its performance for HCF regime is
required to be examined.
Rafiee et al.
Conclusion
Fatigue analysis of notched composite rings is per-
formed experimentally and theoretically. A filament
wound composite tube is produced and fatigue tests
are carried out on the rings cut from the tube through
the split-disk method under tensile-tensile loadings.
PDM is utilized to predict the fatigue life of the com-
posite rings. The modeling procedure combine three
parts of stress analysis, damage estimation and degrad-
ation of mechanical properties in one framework.
The stress analysis is performed through manual
method using CLT for the sake of reducing required
runtime of analysis. Comparing the results of manual
stress analysis with the output of finite element analysis,
required modifications are performed on manual
method to calculate the induced stress in notched
areas of the ring.
The damage parameter is estimated using a normal-
ized life model taking into account the influence of
stress level, cyclic stress ratio and number of cycles.
According to the estimated damage parameter, mech-
anical properties of the layers are gradually degraded
based on the number of cycles and stress state. As the
stiffness of the layers gradually decreases, the stress dis-
tribution in the layers is updated. In each step, the
occurrence of failure is also examined in each layer. If
the failure happens, the stiffness of the failed layer is
suddenly degraded with respect to the mode of failure.
Thus, the mechanical properties of the layers are
degraded through the combination of gradual and
sudden rules. The modeling continues and the whole
procedure repeats till the whole plies are not able to
support any more loading.
The predicted fatigue lifetimes through the the-
oretical modeling are compared with experimental
observations. A very good agreement between them
implies on the very proper accuracy of the simulation
whilst the required runtime is significantly short.
Moreover, the modeling seems to be conservative,
since estimated cycles to failure under fatigue are less
than experimental measurements at least for higher
load levels.
Examining the trend of mechanical properties deg-
radation due to fatigue phenomenon, it is found that in
the investigated layup configuration, the reduction in
the shear modulus shows significantly high severity
than that of the longitudinal and transverse moduli.
Accordingly, the shear modulus eventually reaches
zero, while the longitudinal and transverse moduli
drop jus 0.5% and 2%, respectively, at the end of the
analysis. Therefore, the expected shear failure mode
due to the lay-up configuration of the rings is captured
as the dominant failure mode implying on the proper
modeling of damage evolution.
13
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Roham Rafiee https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1552-5024
References
1. ASTM D2992-06. Standard method for obtaining hydro-
static or pressure design basis for reinforced thermosetting
resin pipe and fitting. American Society for Testing and
Materials, Philadelphia, 2006.
2. Perreux D and Joseph E. The effect of frequency on the
fatigue performance of filament-wound pipes under biax-
ial loading: Experimental results and damage model.
Compos Sci Technol 1997; 57: 353–364.
3. Tarakcioglu N, Gemi L and Yapici A. Fatigue failure
behavior of glass/epoxy  55 filament wound pipes
under internal pressure. Compos Sci Technol 2005; 65:
703–708.
4. Tarakcioglu N, Samanci A, Arikan H, et al. The fatigue
behavior of (55 ) filament wound GRP pipes with a
surface crack under internal pressure. Compos Struct
2007; 80: 207–211.
5. Samanci A, Tarakcioglu N and Akdemir A. Fatigue fail-
ure analysis of surface-cracked (45 º)3 filament-wound
GRP pipes under internal pressure. J Compos Mater
2011; 46: 1041–1050.
6. Samanci A, Avci A, Tarakcioglu N, et al. Fatigue crack
growth of filament wound GRP pipes with a surface
crack under cyclic internal pressure. J Mater Sci 2008;
43: 5569–5573.
7. Samanci A, Tarakcioglu N and Akdemir A. Fatigue fail-
ure analysis of surface cracked (45 ) filament wound
GRP pipes under internal pressure. J Compos Mater
2012; 46: 1041–1050.
8. Gemi L, Tarakcioglu N, Akdemir A, et al. Progressive
fatigue failure behavior of glass/epoxy (75)2 filament-
wound pipes under pure internal pressure. Mater Design
2009; 30: 4293–4298.
9. Deniz ME, Ozen M, Ozdemir O, et al. Environmental
effect on fatigue life of glass–epoxy composite pipes sub-
jected to impact loading. Compos Part B 2013; 44:
304–312.
10. Sari M, Karakuzu R, Deniz ME, et al. Residual failure
pressures and fatigue life of filament-wound composite
pipes subjected to lateral impact. J Compos Mater 2011;
46: 1787–1794.
11. Hawa A, Abdul Majid MS, Mohd A, et al. Ageing effects
on burst pressure test of impacted glass fibre reinforce-
ment epoxy (GRE) pipes. Appl Mech Mater 2014; 695:
717–720.
14 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

12. Uyaner M, Kara M and Şahin A. Fatigue behavior of 31. Chamis CC. Simplified composite micromechanics equa-
filament wound E-glass/epoxy composite tubes damaged tions for strength, fracture toughness and environmental
by low velocity impact. Composites Part B 2014; 61: effects, Technical Memorandum N84–27832, NASA,
358–364. Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 1984.
13. Krishnan P, Abdul Majid MS, Afendi M, et al. Effects of
winding angle on the behaviour of glass/epoxy pipes
under multiaxial cyclic loading. Mater Design 2015; 88:
196–206. Appendix 1
14. Eggers F, Almeida JHS, Azevedo CB, et al. Mechanical Calculated mechanical properties
response of filament wound composite rings under ten-
sion and compression. Polym Test 2019; 78: 105951.
15. Knox EM, Cowling MJ and Hashim SA. Fatigue per- Ex ¼ 50½GPa, Ey ¼ 15:26½GPa,
ð33Þ
formance of adhesively bonded connections in GRE Es ¼ 4:36½GPa and x ¼ 0:26
pipes. Int J Fatigue 2000; 22: 513–519.
16. Kara M and Kırıcı M. Effects of the number of fatigue 2 3
52:03 37:48 0
cycles on the impact behavior of glass fiber/epoxy com- 6 7
posite tubes. Compos Part B Eng 2017; 12315: 55–63. A ¼ 4 37:48 82:70 0 5  106 ½N=m ð34Þ
17. Taşyürek M and Tarakçioğlu N. Enhanced fatigue behav- 0 0 38:09
ior under internal pressure of CNT reinforced filament
wound cracked pipes. Compos Part B Eng 2017; 1241:
2 3
0 0 3:53
23–30. 6 7
18. Kim JS, Bae KD, Lee C, et al. Fatigue life evaluation of B¼4 0 0 7:45 5  103 ½N ð35Þ
composite material sleeve using a residual stiffness model. 3:53 7:45 0
Int J Fatigue 2017; 101: 86–95.
2 3
19. Rafiee R and Eslami F. Theoretical modeling of fatigue 33:89 24:42 0
phenomenon in composite pipes. Compos Struct 2017; 6 7
D ¼ 4 24:42 53:88 0 5 ½Nm ð36Þ
1611: 256–263.
20. Rafiee R. Stochastic fatigue analysis of glass fiber rein- 0 0 24:51
forced polymer pipes. Compos Struct 2017; 167: 96–102.
21. Shabani P, Taheri-Behrooz F, Maleki S, et al. Life pre-
diction of a notched composite ring using progressive Appendix 2
fatigue damage models. Compos Part B Eng 2019;
16515: 754–763. Required static strengths
22. ASTM D 2290-04. Standard test methods for apparent The required static strengths of each ply are calculated
tensile strength of ring or tubular plastics and reinforced
using below empirical formulation31
plastics by split disk method. American Society for Testing
and Materials, Philadelphia, 2004.  
23. ASTM D 3171-06. Standard test methods for constituent
Em
XT ¼ Xf Vf þ Vm ð37Þ
contents of composite materials. American Society for Ef
Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, 2006.
24. Tsai SW, Hoa SV and Gay D. Composite materials, YT ¼ Vm Xm ð38Þ
design and applications. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2003.
25. Gibson RF. Principles of composite material mechanics, XC ¼ 0:5XT ð39Þ
2nd ed. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2007.
26. Rafiee R. Experimental and theoretical investigations on YC ¼ Vm X0m ð40Þ
the failure of filament wound GRP pipes. Compos Part B
Eng 2013; 45: 257–267. where Xf, Xm and X0m stand for fiber strength, matrix
27. Rafiee R and Abbasi F. Numerical and experimental ana- tensile strength and matrix compressive strength,
lyses of the hoop tensile strength of filament wound com-
respectively, reported in Table 1.
posite tubes. Mech Compos Mater2020; Accepted.
Employing equations (37) to (40), following values
28. Shokrieh MM and Lessard LB. Progressive fatigue
damage modeling of composite materials, Part I:
are obtained for strength components
Modeling. J Compos Mater 2000; 43: 1056–1080.
29. Shokrieh MM and Zakeri M. Generalized technique for XT ¼ 1234:6 ½MPa, XC ¼ 617:3 ½MPa,
ð41Þ
cumulative damage modeling of composite laminates. YT ¼ 30 ½MPa, YC ¼ 100 ½MPa
J Compos Mater 2007; 41: 2643–2656.
30. Rafiee R. Stochastic fatigue analysis of glass fiber rein- The in-plane shear strength is assumed 80 MPa
forced polymer pipes. Compos Struct 2017; 167: 96–102. reported by the resin supplier.