Chapter 1.1 - The world-wide failure exercise: Its origin, concept and content

Abstract

This chapter presents an investigation into the status of polymer composite failure theories. It provides a historical context for the origin of the study and also provides a detailed account of the methodology employed by the organizers to attain an impartial, independent, and broad ranging assessment of the leading failure theories. The study is known within the composites community as the “World-Wide Failure Exercise” (WWFE) and in some circles, the “Failure Olympics”. The origin of the WWFE can be traced to an “experts meeting” held at St Albans (UK) in 1991, on the subject of “Failure of Polymeric Composites and Structures: Mechanisms and Criteria for the Prediction of Performance”. The chapter includes a comprehensive description of the process by which the failure theories are selected, a brief description of the failure theories, the data and instructions supplied to the contributors, and the chronology of the key milestones. It evaluates the current level of maturity of theories for predicting the failure response of fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) laminates, minimizing the knowledge gap between theoreticians and design practitioners in this field, and stimulating the composites community into providing design engineers with more robust and accurate failure prediction methods and the confidence to use them. The chapter compares the 19 theories featured within the study and the overall performance of the theories.