Influence of cyclic stress intensity threshold on the scatter seen in cyclic Mode I fatigue delamination growth in DCB tests

Whilst composite materials are now widely used in aircraft structural components for certification purposes current designs are such that any delamination/disbond will not grow. Despite this limit fleet data and data obtained from full scale fatigue tests reveal that small sub mm initial delaminations/disbands can grow when subjected to operational flight loads. To account for this the US Federal Aviation Authority advisory circular AC20-107B outlines a slow growth approach for certifying composite/bonded aircraft structures. A key point in AC20-107B is that growth must be both slow and predictable. Since the life of an airframe is determined by the growth of the fastest (lead) crack/delamination/disbond any analysis tool developed for a composite/bonded airframe requires the ability to predict the both the scatter in delamination/disbond growth and thereby the growth of the lead delamination/disbond in the airframe. To this end the present paper reveals that the Hartman-Schijve variant of the NASGRO equation would appear to show promise for capturing the scatter seen in Mode I delamination tests associated with specimens fabricated from nominally identical material supplied by two different suppliers. It is shown that the values of the constants in the Hartman-Schijve equation associated with these two sources are consistent and the scatter in growth can captured by allowing for small variations in the fatigue threshold term. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.