Fatigue Crack Growth Curves for Material Selection, Design and Service-Life Studies of Carbon-Fibre Reinforced-Plastic Composites: Effect of Test Temperature and R-ratio

The growth of cracks between plies, i.e. delaminations, in continuous fibre polymer matrix composites under cyclic-fatigue loading in operational aircraft structures has always been a very important factor, which has the potential to significantly decrease the service life of such structures. Whilst current designs are based on a ‘no growth’ design philosophy, delamination growth can nevertheless arise in operational aircraft and compromise structural integrity. Therefore, the present paper addr