A Fundamental Investigation into the Deformation and Failure Behavior of Heterogeneous Materials with the Aims of Developing Design Guidelines
Abstract
The objective of the work is to investigate the mechanisms of load transfer, deformation and failure in composites under multiaxial loading in order to link the heterogeneity and anisotropy at the microscale to the macroscale design of composite structures. This is important since the deformation and failure behavior under multiaxial is not well understood, nor are there suitable design guidelines or material allowables clearly defined. Careful experiments have been designed to examine these issues. In these experiments, in additional to measurements of the global behavior of the composites, local variations in the deformation are obtained through digital image correlation. Digital image correlation technique is based on comparing a digital image before and after deformation and extracting the displacements and strains by minimizing a correlation function. This method has been implemented and demonstrated its capabilities by experimenting with a polycarbonate specimen. Local mechanical properties of the constituents are also measured. For example it was found that by applying a confining pressure under multiaxial constraint, the flow resistance for polyetheretherketone (PEEK), can be increased significantly. The Principal Investigator moved to the University of Texas at Austin before the completion of the project at the University; the grant was terminiated and reissued to UT Austin; experiments on unidirectional composite specimens will be performed at the University of Texas at Austin over the next two years.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA392618
Entities
People
- Krishnaswamy Ravi-chandar
Organizations
- University of Houston