Abstract
To avoid catastrophic failure of a large structure is to design the material’s microstructure in such as a way as to render any crack that forms innocuous thereby raising the integrity of that structure. Structural integrity (SI) embraces contributions from materials science and engineering and fabrication and processing technology. It combines a number of interacting factors: the criticality of the application; the accessibility for and ability to inspect vital parts and components; the intended use including load spectrum and time; the consequences of impact, fatigue, environment, temperature and hostile environment; the nature of inherent flaws; and the properties of the material system utilised; and it takes into account “human factors”.
This chapter seeks an overview of advanced composite materials in the twenty-first century, a perspective on designing composite structures having structural integrity.
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Further Reading
P. Beaumont, C. Soutis, Multiscale modelling of the structural integrity of composite materials. Philos. Transact. A Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 374(2071), 20150284 (2016)
P.W.R. Beaumont, C. Soutis, A. Hodzic (eds.), Structural integrity and durability of advanced composites (Elsevier/Woodhead Publication, Cambridge, UK, 2015)
P.W.R. Beaumont, Advances in multi-scale modelling of composite material systems and components. Special issue of the J. Mater. Sci. 41(20), ISSN 0022-2461 (2006)
P.W.R. Beaumont, Stretching the endurance boundary of composite materials: pushing the performance limit of composite structures. Special issue of the J. Mater. Sci. 43(20), ISSN 0022-2461 (2008)
C. Soutis, P. Beaumont, Multi-Scale Modelling of Composite Material Systems (CRC/Woodhead Publishing Limited, 2005)
B. Harris, Fatigue in Composites (CRC/Woodhead Publishing Limited, 2004)
Acknowledgements
This paper raises some important issues and topics on structural integrity of composite materials and structures presented and discussed at two residential Research Discussion Meetings sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The generous financial support of the EPSRC; the NSF; the European Office of Aerospace Research and Development (EOARD), London; the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), UK; and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) in these two meetings is acknowledged.
More recently (January 2016), the support of the Royal Society is acknowledged for its generous support of speakers and for providing the location of a 2-day residential Research Discussion Meeting at Chicheley Hall, Buckinghamshire, England, and the publication of papers in a special issue Phil. Trans. Part A (2016) (to be published).
I have drawn upon material presented at these meetings and benefited from numerous conversations with the authors attending. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Dr Alastair Johnson and Dr Brian Cox and Professors John Whitcomb, Josef Jančář, Carlos González, Constantinos Soutis, Tony Bunsell, Scott Case and Glyn Davies for providing me with figures.
Numerous conversations with Professor Michael Ashby on solving problems of material behaviour have influenced greatly the research of my group at Cambridge, and some of this work is included in this chapter. Also, I acknowledge the many valuable conversations with Professor Tony Kelly who from the beginning encouraged the writing of this book.
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Beaumont, P.W.R. (2017). Slow Cracking in Composite Materials: Catastrophic Fracture of Composite Structures. In: Beaumont, P., Soutis, C., Hodzic, A. (eds) The Structural Integrity of Carbon Fiber Composites. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46120-5_18
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