• Composites Research
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.10-16
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• 2011

Many tests are required to predict the fatigue life of composite laminates made of various materials and having different layup sequences. Aiming at reducing the number of tests, a methodology was presented in this paper to predict fatigue life of composite laminates based on fatigue life prediction of constituents, i.e. the fiber, matrix and interface, using micromechanics of failure. For matrix, the equivalent stress model which is generally used for isotropic materials was employed to take care of multi-axial fatigue loading. For fiber, a maximum stress model considering only stress along fiber direction was used. The critical plane model was introduced for the interface of the fiber and matrix, but fatigue life prediction was ignored for the interface since the interface fatigue strength was presumed high enough. The modified Goodman equation was utilized to take into account the mean stress effect. To check the validity of the theory, the fatigue life of three different GFRP laminates, UDT[$90^{\circ}2$], BX[${\pm}45^{\circ}$]S and TX[$0^{\circ}/{\pm}45^{\circ}$]S was examined experimentally. The comparison between predictions and test measurements showed good agreement.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.35-42
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• 2022

This paper deals with predicting comparable mechanical properties of laminated composite plates. The stiffness of an equivalent anisotropic composite plate is derived based on classical lamination theory. A novel failure criterion is defined to describe the failure behaviour of laminated composite plates based on micro-mechanics failure criteria. Finally, the theory's validation of finite element analysis results was verified. We concluded that this theory is very suitable for failure analysis of laminated composite plates for aerospace applications due to their relative simplicity and computational efficiency.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.4 no.3 s.13
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• pp.1-13
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• 2002

Design methods for new flexible pavements and overlays are in the transition from empirical to mechanistic approach, and many state highway agencies trend to move toward the adoption and use of mechanistic-empirical (M-E) design in new constructions and rehabilitations of flexible pavements. Hence, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) decided to develop a M-E flexible pavement design procedure, in which major pavement distresses such as fatigue cracking and rutting are employed as indicators of the serviceability of a flexible pavement. The main concept of the developed design procedure is that a designed pavement that is supposed to carry a certain number of traffic must satisfy designated thresholds of rut depths and fatigue lives during a service period. For the M-E design procedure, transfer functions were developed to predict rut-depths and fatigue lives. These functions related the pavement responses to pavement performance. For validation, three current new flexible pavement design cases were obtained from the MDOT. In these cases, asphalt concrete (AC) layer thicknesses determined by the suggested M-E procedure compare favorably with those determined by the current MDOT design practice that is based on AASHTO design guide. This finding implies that the suggested Michigan M-E flexible pavement design procedure can provide a good opportunity to improve the current design practice.