MCML receives a new grant from ONR
Title: Multiscale Modeling of Composites Subjected to Constant Amplitude Fatigue Loading
Research Team : MCML and Prof. Ravindra Duddu
Source of Support : Office of Naval Research, Sea-Based Aviation National Naval Responsibility (SBA NNR) Airframe Structures and Materials Focus Area.
Program Manager William C. Nickerson.
Synopsis:
Damage tolerant approach to design, certification and maintenance of composite aircraft presents a paradigm shift with tremendous potential payoffs in terms of affordability, light weighting and long-term sustainment of the future Navy Warfighter. Achieving the capability to reliably predict damage and failure under sustained and long-term operational loads using computational modeling and simulation is essential to realizing this paradigm shift in composite structural design, maintenance and certification. This project will establish an experimentally validated, multiscale computational framework for prediction of long term performance of aerospace composites under fatigue loading. The proposed computational framework will incorporate all damage mechanisms that contribute to the overall performance of the composite using physics-based principles and will enable the simulation of large composite structural components in a computationally accurate and efficient manner. The fatigue damage modeling framework established through this project will be mesh insensitive and computationally tractable. A key focus of the project will be to understand how the subcritical damage mechanisms such as delamination, matrix cracks and fiber fracture interact to provide the survivability characteristics of composites under sustained cyclic loads. This research will elucidate mechanisms of failure, and forecast lifetime performance of composite structural components. Achieving this predictive modeling and simulation capability has the potential to bring significant economic advantages through reduction of sustainment requirements – by increasing the maintenance periods of assets and guiding maintenance procedures, and through the reduction of the weight of the structure – by better informing the structural design and certification processes regarding the limit states of the composite.