Abstract

Composite structures often sustain nicks or surface damage during service. These provide sources for stress concentration at the boundary of the composite structure. From the perspective of failure initiation it is of practical interest to understand the effect of a boundary stress concentration at the length scale of the microstructure. With this in mind, a new rigorous and systematic multi-scale method for the assessment of the size of over stressed zones inside materials with microstructure is developed. Several examples are provided.

TUESDAY, March 30, 2004
Time: 1:30 P.M.
Location: PPB 300