Prediction Of Polymer Composites

With the increasing use of composite materials for diverse applications ranging from civil infrastructure to offshore oil exploration, the durability of these materials is an important issue. Practical and accurate models for lifetime will enable engineers to push the boundaries of design and make the most efficient use of composite materials, while at the same time maintaining the utmost standards of safety. The work described in this dissertation is an effort to predict the strength and rupture lifetime of a unidirectional carbon fiber/polymer matrix composite using micromechanical techniques. Sources of material variability are incorporated into these models to predict probabilistic distributions for strength and lifetime. This approach is best suited to calculate material reliability for a desired lifetime under a given set of external conditions