Fatigue analysis of a naval composite structure

Abstract

The use of composite materials in marine industry has many potential benefits, such as lower weight. However, there are still some failure mechanisms, such as fatigue, that are not yet completely under- stood. This work presents a formulation to simulate the fatigue phenomena, which is based on the Serial/Parallel Rule of Mixtures (S/P RoM) (Rastellini et al. 2008) and a fatigue damage model (Oller et al. 2005) previously developed for metals. The SP-RoM can be understood as a constitutive law manager that provides the elastic and non-linear response of the composite from the constitutive performance of its constituent materials. The fatigue damage model is based on the definition of a reduction function that takes into account the cyclic performance of the material, acting on its strength and stiffness. Both models are used to study a section of a container ship. The results obtained from this analysis validate the capability of the formulation to predict fatigue failure in marine composite structures.