Offered as Required


Credit Hours: 3-0-3
Prerequisites: AE 2120 or ME 2211
Catalog Description: Brittle and ductile fracture criteria. Failure prediction in composite structures. Free-edge and internal delamination. Anisotropic cracks. Fatigue behavior of composites and comparison with metal fatigue. Crosslisted with AE, CHE, and MSE 7775.
Textbooks: R. L. Carlson and G. A. Kardomateas, An Introduction to Fatigue in Metals and Composites; First Edition, Chapman and Hall, London, 1995.
Instructors: George Kardomateas (AE), Ramesh Talreja (AE), David McDowell (ME), Richard Neu (ME), Steve Johnson (MSE), Wan-Lee Yin (CE)
Topics:
  1. Basic concepts in Fracture Mechanics
    • brittle and ductile fracture criteria
    • scales in fracture mechanics treatments
    • failure prediction in multilayer composites.
  2. Free-Edge Delamination in Composites
    • interlaminar normal and shear edge stresses
    • initiation of free-edge delamination
    • effects on fatigue loading.
  3. Internal Delaminations in Composites
    • delamination buckling
    • prediction of monotonic and fatigue growth.
  4. Cracks in Anisotropic Materials
    • Riemann-Hilbert complex variable approach
    • stress intensity factors and displacement fields
    • symmetric, plane skew-symmetric and longitudinal shear.
  5. New Micro-Mechanical Models
    • fiber bridging models in composites
    • discrete asperity models in metals.
  6. Fracture and Fatigue Control in Structural Design and Maintenance
    • safe-life, fail-safe and damage-tolerant design
    • structural integrity case studies.
    • Damage tolerance analysis and certification procedures