Delamination Behavior of an Advanced Al-Li Alloy Laminate during Fatigue Crack Growth

Abstract

The delamination shape and size of fiber metal laminate are the key factors to study the fatigue crack growth behavior. To study delamination behavior of an advanced Al-Li alloy laminate during fatigue crack propagation process, the relation of the delamination size between the region with nearly 0 strain on the surface of specimen and the delamination region was obtained by finite element method. The strain data from digital image correlation (DIC) was correlated with the true delamination data. The method was proved by experimental data of delamination under different lay-up structures, saw-cut lengths and crack lengths; and the real-time monitoring of delamination behavior of the advanced Al-Li alloy laminate during fatigue crack growth was realized. The results show that this method has excellent applicability, economy and data consistency.

Keywords

• advanced Al-Li alloy laminate
• delamination
• fatigue crack growth
• digital image correlation (DIC)
• finite element method