The relationships between a resistance curve (R-curve), the corresponding fracture process zone length, the shape of the traction/displacement softening law, and the propagation of fracture are examined in the context of the through-the-thickness fracture of composite laminates. A procedure that accounts for R-curve toughening mechanisms by superposing bilinear cohesive elements is proposed. Si...

Electrical tomography can be used as a structural health monitoring technique to identify different damage mechanisms in composite laminates. Previous work has established the link between transverse cracking density and mesoscale conductivity of the ply. Through the mesoscale relationship, the conductivity obtained from electrical tomography can be used as a measure of the transverse cracking ...

L.K. Grunenfelder and S.R. Nutt 1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0241, USA *Corresponding author: [email protected] Abstract: Void formation as a function of resin moisture content was investigated to better understand and control process defects in composite parts made from prepreg. In this study, uncured prepr...

The paper deals with the application of the parallel and distributed calculations for global optimization of composite structures. Evolutionary Algorithm and Artificial Immune System are employed as global optimization methods. The aim of the optimization is to find the best stacking sequence of laminates for given criteria. To reduce the computational time parallel versions of global optimizat...

Abstract This work presents a new aeroelastic optimisation framework for the preliminary design of variable stiffness composite wing structures. The is constructed by sequentially and iteratively solving two sub-problems: tailoring lay-up retrieval, using gradient-based algorithms with full-analytical sensitivities provided. During tailoring, mass minimised optimising lamination parameters thic...

Static indentation tests on carbon fibre reinforced laminates have been frequently used in literature to predict the value of penetration energy for the laminate. The mechanical set-up most commonly employed involves the use of indentors of diameter comparable with that of the impactors prescribed from standards for falling weight impact, such as ASTM D3763.The specimen is simply supported usin...