Fatigue Damage Modelling of Continuous E-glass Fibre/Epoxy Composite

Static and fatigue tension tests have been performed on continuous E-glass fibre reinforced epoxy composite.All tests were followed by non-destructive techniques: acoustic emission records (AE) and microscopic observations in addition to stiffness monitoring with an extensometer in order to investigate damage mechanisms occurring under both static and fatigue loadings.The data obtained were used to identify the modes of damage and its effects on the macroscopic behaviour of the composite material under both static and fatigue loading. Then, a fatigue model was used to predict the fatigue life of the composite under tension-tension cyclic tests. This model reduces drastically the number of fatigue tests required to obtain S-N curves.Experimental data were in excellent agreement with model predictions.