This book provides the first comprehensive review of its kind on the long-term behaviour of composite materials and structures subjected to time variable mechanical, thermal, and chemical influences, a subject of critical importance to the design, development, and certification of high performance engineering structures. Specific topics examined include damage, damage characterization, and damage mechanics; fatigue testing and evaluation; fatigue behaviour of short and long fibre reinforced polymer and metal matrix materials; viscoelastic and moisture effects; delamination; statistical considerations; the modeling of cumulative damage development; and life prediction. The volume provides an extensive presentation of data, discussions, and comparisons on the behaviour of the major types of material systems in current use, as well as extensive analysis and modeling (including the first presentation of work not found elsewhere). The book will be of special interest to engineers concerned with reliability, maintainability, safety, certification, and damage tolerance; to materials developers concerned with making materials for long-term service, especially under severe loads and environments, and to lecturers, students, and researchers involved in material system design, performance, solid mechanics, fatigue, durability, and composite materials. The scope of the work extends from entry level material to the frontiers of the subject.

Bringing together materials mechanics and modelling, this book provides a complete guide to damage mechanics of composite materials for engineers.

A survey of work on the fatigue behavior of composites dealing with the problems met with by materials scientists and designers in aerospace, automotive, marine, and structural engineering. Including a historical review, standards, micromechanical aspects, life-prediction methods for constant stress and variable stress, and fatigue in practical situations.

Fatigue Life Prediction of Composites and Composite Structures, Second Edition, is a comprehensive review of fatigue damage and fatigue life modeling and prediction methodologies for composites and their use in practice. In this new edition, existing chapters are fully updated, while new chapters are introduced to cover the most recent developments in the field. The use of composites is growing in structural applications in many industries, including aerospace, marine, wind turbine and civil engineering. However, there are uncertainties about their long-term performance, including performance issues relating to cyclic fatigue loading that hinder the adoption of a commonly accepted credible fatigue design methodology for the life prediction of composite engineering structures. With its distinguished editor and international team of contributors, this book is a standard reference for industry professionals and researchers alike. - Examines past, present and future trends associated with the fatigue life prediction of composite materials and structures - Assesses novel computational methods for fatigue life modeling and prediction of composite materials under constant amplitude loading - Covers a wide range of techniques for predicting fatigue, including their theoretical background and practical applications - Addresses new topics and covers contemporary research developments in the field

Creep and Fatigue in Polymer Matrix Composites, Second Edition, updates the latest research in modeling and predicting creep and fatigue in polymer matrix composites. The first part of the book reviews the modeling of viscoelastic and viscoplastic behavior as a way of predicting performance and service life. Final sections discuss techniques for modeling creep rupture and failure and how to test and predict long-term creep and fatigue in polymer matrix composites. - Reviews the latest research in modeling and predicting creep and fatigue in polymer matrix composites - Puts a specific focus on viscoelastic and viscoplastic modeling - Features the time-temperature-age superposition principle for predicting long-term response - Examines the creep rupture and damage interaction, with a particular focus on time-dependent failure criteria for the lifetime prediction of polymer matrix composite structures that are illustrated using experimental cases

Fatigue of Textile Composites provides a current, state-of-art review on recent investigations on the fatigue behavior of composite materials, mainly those reinforced with textiles. As this particular group of composite materials is extremely important for a wide variety of industrial applications, including automotive, aeronautical, and marine, etc., mainly due to their peculiarities and advantages with respect to unidirectional laminated composites, the text presents comprehensive information on the huge variety of interlacement geometric architectures that are suitable for a broad range of different applications, their excellent drapability and versatility, which is highly important for complex double-curvature shape components and three-dimensional woven fabrics without plane reinforcement, and their main mechanical characteristics which are currently in high demand from industry. - Presents the current state-of-the-art investigations on fatigue behavior of composite materials, mainly those reinforced with textiles - Contains invaluable information pertaining to a wide variety of industries, including automotive, aeronautical, and marine, amongst others - Provides comprehensive information on the huge variety of interlacement geometric architectures that are suitable for a broad range of different applications