Fatigue Analysis of Glass Fiber-Reinforced Polymer

Fatigue analysis is an important study for composite materials used in automobile, aerospace, and construction industries. In this report, the effect on fatigue life of specimens by varying thickness and load is investigated. Furthermore, the effect of lateral displacement caused by specimens oscillating between two displacement positions when specimens are under fatigue loading on fatigue life of the composite material was also studied. The effect of stress on the fatigue life of glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites has also been briefly investigated. With E-Glass (CSM) as reinforcement and epoxy as a matrix material, the GFRP laminates were fabricated with varying thickness. The specimen was fabricated using a hand layup procedure, where the fiber volume fraction of the composite was 43%. The test was conducted as per ISO 13003 standard that defines the procedure for fatigue testing of fiber-reinforced plastic composite under cyclic loading conditions of constant amplitude and constant frequency. The fatigue testing machine was servo-hydraulic driven and computer controlled UTM having a scalable load cell of 100 kN. Under tension-tension type loading fatigue, life was analyzed at a stress ratio of 0.1.