High-cycle bending fatigue and life prediction of composite materials

The high-cycle bending fatigue experiment of composite cantilever beam was designed by employing the first-order bending resonance phenomenon. Based on the study of the local fatigue damage model and cycle jump technique, the Matlab-based semi-analytical algorithm for high-cycle bending fatigue analysis of the composite cantilever beam was developed to substitute for traditional metal fatigue theory. On the other hand, on the basis of UMAT subroutine, the fatigue damage model and cycle jump technology were successfully applied in the commercial software ABAQUS. The semi-analytical method and the finite element method were separately employed to analyze the progressive damage accumulation and failure process for the high-cycle bending fatigue, out of which high-cycle bending fatigue life was predicted. The numerical results are in agreement with the experimental data.