ANALYSIS OF FATIGUE CRACK GROWTH IN GLALL

A finite element analysis is applied to the fatigue crack growth properties in glass aluminum hybrid laminates (GLALL).The stress and strain fields of GLALL with different crack length are obtained from the computation,in which the cracks are assumed to expand only in Al layers.The relationship of the effective stress intensity factors on the crack tips to the crack length is derived by the energy method.It is found that the bridging effect of the glass fibers with high strength on the cracks in Al layers decreases obviously the effective stress intensity factors thus the growth rate of the fatigue cracks is cut down to a great extent .The computation results agree well with the experimental data.