Fatigue Crack Growth in Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composite Laminate Using Higher-Order XFEM

Fiber-reinforced polymer composite laminate has a wide range of applications due to its high strength-to-weight ratio. Fatigue loading is the most common cause of failure for these materials. Fatigue life estimation in symmetric ply composite laminate under cyclic mechanical loading is performed in this work. The analysis is performed for various laminate schemes such as [0°/15°]s, [0°/30°]s, [0°/45°]s, and [0°/60°]s. For each laminate scheme, several discontinuities, such as edge cracks, multiple holes, and multiple minor cracks, are considered for detailed numerical analysis. Higher-order XFEM is used to analyze fracture behavior. Higher-order XFEM employs a tenfold higher-order crack tip enrichment function instead of fourfold enrichment function for improving solution accuracy. The performance of higher-order XFEM is demonstrated in few numerical examples in which the fatigue life curve is compared for different symmetric ply composite laminates.