Fatigue of filament wound materials was investigated using Digital Image Correlation DIC monitoring every 50th cycle of a high cycle fatigue test of a split disk ring sample. The ring was cut from a filament wound glass fiber reinforced polymer pressure vessel and had a hole. The strain field redistributed over time, lowering and moving strain concentrations. The redistributive behavior was most extensive in areas that later developed local fiber failure, which soon led to catastrophic failure. Microscopy was carried out on partially fatigued material. Damage evolved as matrix cracks and matrix splitting of groups of fibers and complete debonding of single fibers. This occurred at borders of voids and matrix cracks, easing progressive fiber failure. It was concluded that fatigue in filament wound composites has an extensive matrix damage phase before final failure. Fibers could locally withstand strains close to and above the static failure strain for considerable number of cycles if little local strain field redistribution was observed. The used method was able to detect changes in the strain fields that preceded catastrophic failure. It was concluded that DIC combined with the post processing methods presented may serve as a valuable tool for structural integrity monitoring of composite pressure vessels over time.
A progressive FEA mechanical fatigue degradation model for composites was developed and implemented using a UMAT user material subroutine in Abaqus. Numerical results were compared to experimental strain field data from high frequency digital image correlation (DIC) of split disk fatigue testing of pressure vessel cut outs with holes. The model correctly predicted the onset and evolution of damage in the matrix as well as the onset of fiber failure. The model uses progressive failure analysis based on the maximum strain failure criterion, the cycle jump method, and Miner’s sum damage accumulation rule. A parameter study on matrix properties was needed to capture the scatter in strain fields observed experimentally by DIC. S-N curve for the matrix material had to be lowered by 0% to 60% to capture the experimental scatter. The onset of local fiber failure had to be described by local S-N curves measured by DIC having 2.5 times greater strain than that of S-N curves found from standard coupon testing.
Summary
There is a growing interest in replacing steel tubes that operate in high pressure and high temperature environments with composite tubes. Such applications can include drilling risers and drill strings for the offshore oil industry. Replacing steel with composites in such applications will greatly reduce the weight of the equipment and require less buoyancy elements built into the structures. This paper seeks to investigate how composite tubes behave when submerged and how optical fibers can be used as a health monitoring system for such applications utilizing Rayleigh optical backscatter reflectometry. A glass fiber filament wound tube of 100 mm inner diameter and 600 mm length with a layup of approximately [89°, ±12.7°, ±45°] was exposed to external hydrostatic pressure in an autoclave. Optical fibers glued to the outer surface of the tube were used to measure strain during testing. A strain field reading was carried out every 0.5 bar pressure increase and correlated well with strain fields from a finite element analysis of the tube. The finite element analysis predicted buckling at 4.33 bar, assuming no material failure; however, the tube buckled at 3.5 bar due to a sudden stiffness reduction from material failure. The optical fibers could detect the early failure and functioned well as a health monitoring system.
A progressive FEA fatigue degradation model for composites was developed and implemented using a UMAT user material subroutine in Abaqus. Numerical results were compared to experimental strain field data from high frequency Digital Image Correlation (DIC) of split disk fatigue testing of pressure vessel cut outs with holes. The model correctly predicted the onset and evolution of damage in the matrix as well as the onset of fiber failure. The model use progressive failure analysis based on the maximum strain failure criterion, the cycle jump method and Miner sum damage accumulation rule. A parameter study on matrix properties was needed to capture the scatter in strain fields observed experimentally by DIC. S-N curve for the matrix material had to be lowered by 0% to 60% to capture the experimental scatter. The onset of local fiber failure had to be described by local S-N curves measured by DIC having 2.5 times greater strain than that of S-N curves found from standard coupon testing.
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