TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 803/2004
R S Court and P Bastid
Background
TWI has performed a programme of work to address the lack of design tools for assessing damage in composite materials and joints. This work builds on earlier study on delaminations and the effects of impact damage on lap-shear joints.
This present report gives details of mechanical tests and theoretical modelling work on adhesively bonded carbon-epoxy and glass-epoxy joints.
Finite element analysis was used to model the effect of flaws and damage on both the static and fatigue performance of adhesively bonded composite joints.
Objectives
- To assess the effect of impact damage on the quasi-static and fatigue performance of composite material joints.
- To develop computer models to predict the mechanical performance of structural composite joints, and compare with experimental data generated in the programme.
- To develop computer models able to assess the structural integrity of composite material joints subjected to fatigue loads.