This paper presents an experimental damage analysis of a 5-harness satin weave carbon-PPS (PolyPhenylene Sulphide) composite under uni-axial static tensile load. In order to understand the local damage behaviour, tensile tests were performed and accompanied by acoustic emission (AE) and microscopic analysis of the composite specimen. These tests enable us to detect the damage initiation stress as well as the damage initiation location in the composite. Microscopic observation of the tested composite laminates allowed the characterization of the sequence of intra-yarn transverse damage (perpendicular to the load direction) occurrence at different locations in the laminate, starting from crack initiation to the final failure of the composite.

This study forms the second part of a paper on the local damage analysis in a thermoplastic 5-harness satin weave composite under uni-axial static tensile load. The experimental observations of Part I are confronted with the meso-FE simulations. Part II describes the following steps regarding the unit cell meso-FE modeling starting from: 1) Construction of the unit cell geometrical model; 2) Estimation of the homogenized elastic constants of the unit cell using different boundary conditions; 3) Evaluation of the local stress and damage behavior of the unit cell using meso-FE simulations. The aim of the numerical analysis is to investigate the dependency of local ply stress and damage profiles on the adjacent layers of the laminate.

The nonlinear evolution of waves propagating on a spatially varying opposing current has been observed in a wave–current flume. Regular waves with different initial periods and different initial steepness, s (0.05 < s < 0.19), were generated and observed. Frequency downshift, even with very small initial steepness, was identified. As expected, it was found that opposing currents can have significant interactions with wavetrains. The ultimate frequency downshift increases with the increase in initial steepness. The evolution of frequency modulation was observed via the instantaneous frequency extracted by the Morlet-wavelet transform. The instantaneous frequency showed that often the process of frequency downshift can be local in time and gradual, but abrupt changes of local frequency were also detected. The presence of an opposing current can gradually block the primary wave energy and destroy the conservation of the wave action at downwave locations, thus increasing the asymmetric modulation and accelerating the effective frequency downshift.

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