Prediction of Residual Fatigue Life of Composite Mono Leaf Spring Based on Stiffness Degradation

摘要

Estimation of remaining useful life gained considerable attention in composites technology in recent years. It is due to efficient technique to check the reliability or sustainability of components. This paper adopts the mixed-mode approaches such as experimental, analytical and finite element methods to predict the residual fatigue life of cracked composite mono leaf spring. The finite element analysis is carried out on both healthy and cracked composite springs to analyze static and fatigue life. Experimental fatigue test has been conducted on an artificially cracked leaf spring for 500 set numbers of fatigue cycles up to 2000 to record strains. These strains are used in Hwang and Han analytical model to determine the residual fatigue life of cracked spring. As a result, the residual fatigue life of cracked spring is found to be 2.48?×?10_(6)cycles determined by the model. At the end, the stiffness degradation curve is drawn by Hwang and Han model and compared with benchmark stiffness degradation curve. The analytical model results are found to be in closer approximation with the benchmark.