Engineering Commons^™

Analysis Of Moisture Absorption And Diffusion In Fiber Reinforced Polymeric Resin-Matrix Composite Materials, Stephen Stern Tompkins

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The diffusion of moisture through fiber reinforced polymeric-matrix composite materials has been studied analytically. The diffusion in the orthotropic, nonhomogeneous material was modeled, in detail, with a two-dimensional transient diffusion analysis. An effective diffusivity for the composite was determined in terms of the fiber volume fraction and the resin diffusivity. This effective diffusivity is in better agreement with recent data than those previously determined using less complex models.

The influence of both material and environmental parameters on the moisture content of the composite was determined analytically. Predicted moisture contents were compared over a wide range of values for emittance, solar …

Crack Propagation In Aluminum Sheets Reinforced With Boron-Epoxy, George Lawrence Roderick

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The literature has shown that crack propagation in cracked metal sheets can be significantly reduced by bonding an uncracked reinforcement to the metal sheet. However, cyclic debonding typically occurs over a localized area near the crack. Herein, an analysis was developed to predict both the crack growth and debond growth in a reinforced system. The analysis was based on the use of complex variable Green's functions for cracked, isotropic sheets and uncracked, orthotropic sheets to calculate inplane and interlaminar stresses, stress intensities and strain-energy-release rates. An iterative solution was developed that used the stress intensities and strain-energy-release rates to predict …