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Fatigue life prediction of ceramic-matrix composites

Longbiao Li (College of Civil Aviation, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China)

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology

ISSN: 0002-2667

Article publication date: 7 June 2018

Issue publication date: 12 September 2018

228

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to predict fatigue life and fatigue limit of fiber-reinforced ceramic-matrix composites (CMCs) with different fiber preforms, i.e. unidirectional, cross-ply, 2D-, 2.5D- and 3D-woven, at room and elevated temperatures.

Design/methodology/approach

Under cyclic loading, matrix multicracking and interface debonding occur upon first loading to fatigue peak stress, and the interface wear appears with increasing cycle number, leading to degradation of the interface shear stress and fibers strength. The relationships between fibers fracture, cycle number, fatigue peak stress and interface wear damage mechanism have been established based on the global load sharing (GLS) criterion. The evolution of fibers broken fraction versus cycle number curves of fiber-reinforced CMCs at room and elevated temperatures have been obtained.

Findings

The predicted fatigue life S–N curve can be divided into two regions, i.e. the Region I controlled by the degradation of interface shear stress and fibers strength and the Region II controlled by the degradation of fibers strength.

Practical/implications

The proposed approach can be used to predict the fatigue life and fatigue limit of unidirectional, cross-ply, 2D-, 2.5D- and 3D-woven CMCs under cyclic loading.

Originality/value

The fatigue damage mechanisms and fibers failure model were combined together to predict the fatigue life and fatigue limit of fiber-reinforced CMCs with different fiber preforms.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study has received supports from the Natural Science Fund of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20140813) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. NS2016070). The author thanks the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their valuable comments.

Citation

Li, L. (2018), "Fatigue life prediction of ceramic-matrix composites", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 90 No. 5, pp. 720-726. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-01-2016-0014

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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