Fatigue life of postbuckled structures with indentation damage

Abstract

The fatigue life of composite stiffened panels with indentation damage was investigated experimentally using single stringer compression specimens. Indentation damage was induced on one of the two flanges of the stringer. The experiments were conducted using advanced instrumentation, including digital image correlation, passive thermography, and in-situ ultrasonic scanning. Specimens with initial indentation damage lengths of 37 mm to 56 mm were tested in fatigue and the effects of cyclic load amplitude and damage size were studied. A means of comparison of the damage propagation rates and collapse loads based on a stress intensity measure and the Paris law is proposed.