Fatigue behaviour of carbon/epoxy Non-Crimp Fabric composites for automotive applications

Facing the stringent requirements for fuel economy in automotive industry, composite materials are seen to be utilized for structural lightweighting. This paper focuses on the fatigue test development and fatigue behavior of a biaxial [0/90] carbon/epoxy non-crimp fabric composites for automotive applications. A new fatigue test specimen was successfully developed for fatigue testing under fully reversed loading, i.e. stress ratio R=-1, at room temperature and 130 ℃. The developed test specimen prevents buckling during testing without use of an anti-buckling fixture. 3D Digital image correlation strain mapping also revealed a uniform strain distribution on the surface of this specimen geometry. Fatigue test results indicate that the fatigue behavior at both room temperature and 130 ℃ is matrix dominated. The fatigue data is a good fit to the Basquin equation σa=σf(2N)b.