Print Email Facebook Twitter Delamination Growth Predictions of Non-Uniform Sandwich Details Title Delamination Growth Predictions of Non-Uniform Sandwich Details Author Zhang, D. Contributor Alderliesten, R.C. (mentor) Branner, K. (mentor) Joosse, P. (mentor) Faculty Aerospace Engineering Department Aerospace Structures & Materials Programme EWEM European Wind Energy Master Date 2016-08-23 Abstract Sandwich composite is commonly used as a material of wind turbine blades. In order to meet the practical needs, the design of sandwich always contains some designed-in imperfections, like ply drop of facing laminates, core with resin grid and so on. These unavoidable designed-in imperfections may induce delamination problems and result in huge economic loss. This Master thesis project aims to predict the delamination growth of sandwich with facing ply drop. Di↵erent failure modes of sandwich are studied; the potential relation between facing ply drop and delamination is clarified. Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT) based delamination growth analysis is applied in numerical study. Pristine sandwich and ply drop sandwich with face/core interface crack are tested. After previous simulation results are compared with experimental results, a new simu- lation method combining VCCT and post-buckling delamination analysis is established. However the numerical simulations do not match with experiments well and need to be improved. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:db849c70-8d1c-49d0-898d-cbc89d20b693 Embargo date 2021-08-23 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights (c) 2016 Zhang, D. Files PDF Thesis_Di Zhang_Delft.pdf 30.86 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:db849c70-8d1c-49d0-898d-cbc89d20b693/datastream/OBJ/view