Optimisation of Fibre Metal Laminate Splice Designs with Focus on Fatigue Performance: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach

Fibre Metal Laminates (FMLs) have been widely utilised in aircraft structures for their specific strength, durability and damage tolerance. Most aircraft structures, due to their size, require joining, and FMLs allow for a special type of joint called the splice, a unique but a lesser known joint.<br/><br/>The bulk of research into the splice...

Prediction of Fatigue Crack Growth and Damage Directionality in Non-Conventional Fibre Metal Laminates

This thesis presents a model that is able to predict fatigue crack growth and damage directionality in non-conventional Fibre Metal Laminates (FMLs) in CentreCracked Tension (CCT) specimens. Non-conventional FMLs encompass all FMLs other than standardised ones such as GLARE. FMLs can be made non-conventional by using multiple fibre types, any...

Towards the Certification of Bonded Primary Fiber Metal Laminate Structures by Bolted Disbond Arrest Features

A new certification approach for bonded primary Fiber Metal Laminate (FML) structures is investigated: using bolts as Disbond Arrest Features (DAF)s to contain the growth of bond line damages so that they can be found and repaired by inspection before becoming critical. By fatigue testing with coupon specimens and model analysis, it has been...