Review on Fatigue Analysis of Mechanical Structures Made Up of Composite Materials

Abstract

Composite materials have been widely used in aerospace, marine applications etc. because of their low density and high strength property. Aircraft wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers of an aircraft, blades of the wind turbines are manufactured using composite materials. Fatigue occurs when a material is subjected to repeated loading and unloading. If the loads are above a certain threshold, microscopic cracks will begin to form at the surface. In this paper author has reviewed nine papers where fatigue analysis has been carried out on different composite materials structures (WIG, vertical stabilizer). The tail assembly of an aircraft structure commonly referred to as empennage, which provides directional stability to aircraft. A lot of research has been made on improving the fatigue life of an aircraft. Fatigue analysis of an aircraft includes determination of fatigue life, damage factor, safety factor, SN curve etc. Lately lot of research has been made on improving composite materials’ mechanical properties by the addition of rubber, e-waste.

Keywords: Composite materials, fatigue analysis, vertical stabilizer, S-N curve