Towards safer design
Many people believe that the bodywork of various racing cars come from sheet metals, though most of them are fabricated with FRPs. Apart from the automotive, naval and aerospace engineering sectors and ranging from civilian to military applications, industries makes extensive use of these plastic material in their products. Additionally, tanks, vessels and pipes mostly used by the chemical industry opt for these materials in their complex design. Another area that has become very topical during the last few years is the strengthening of reinforced concrete structures with advanced FRP composites. The reason that FRPs have become very popular in all these industries relies on their advantageous properties. These involve lightweight, high strength, stiffness, durability, good corrosion resistance, ease of installation and increased cost-effectiveness in their uses. However, it was not until recently that the damage behaviour of FRPs was extensively explored, particularly for sandwich structures, to be included in their basic design concept. This project succeeded in developing a comprehensive damage tolerance methodology that covers all-important aspects to be taken into account when designing FRP sandwich structures. More specifically, a set of analytical tools for prediction of strength and fatigue life of damaged sandwich structures were developed and successfully tested against experimental results. These tools may be combined with a set of analytical methods that were developed and verified using test specimens and real components. Additionally, a few non-destructive inspection procedures applicable on real structures under service conditions were also identified, evaluated and compared against other methods. The project results may contribute to new safe and cost-effective design measures for improving damage tolerance and minimising damage impact on FRP structural efficiency.
