Rapid Determination of the High Cycle Fatigue Limit Curve of Carbon Fiber Epoxy Matrix Composite Laminates by Thermography Methodology: Tests and Finite Element Simulations

Self-heating measurements under cyclic loading allow a fast estimation of fatigue properties of composite materials. The tensile fatigue behavior of a high stress carbon fiber epoxy-matrix composite laminates is examined at room temperature. Tension- tension cyclic fatigue tests are also conducted under load control at a sinusoidal frequency of 5 Hz to obtain high-cycle fatigue stress curves (S-N). The fatigue limits of the different composite lay-ups tested were successfully compared with data resulting from the self-heating test method on the same laminates. This comparison reveals a good agreement between the two methods dedicated to stress fatigue limit determination. In addition, a tomographic analysis is used to perform comparisons at the microscale between both fatigue methods. The nonlinear heat transfer laminate theory is used for self-heating tests simulation. Self-heating simulations involving conduction, convection, and boundary radiation are performed with the Finite Element code Cast3 M.