Tensile fatigue behaviour of glass plain-weave fabric composites in on- and off-axis directions

The tension-tension fatigue behaviour of woven fabric composites was investigated in the on-axis and off-axis directions. Similar to the static tensile properties of woven fabric composites. the tension-tension fatigue behaviour of woven fabric composites was also observed to be anisotropic. The fatigue damage development in both the directions was studied using scanning electron microscopy and acoustic emission techniques. The influence of the applied fatigue frequency and the fatigue stress ratio in both the directions was investigated. At a fatigue frequency of 5 Hz, the hysteresis heating will occur more severely in the off-axis direction than in the on-axis direction. Increasing fatigue stress ratio will lead to a lower hysteresis heating. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.