Probabilistic fatigue life modelling of FRP composites for construction

Abstract

Abstract Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have been used extensively for aerospace, marine transportation, and wind energy applications for several decades prior to attracting widespread attention in the field of civil engineering. While limited data is available on the long term fatigue performance of FRP materials for construction and building projects, it is worthwhile to review the numerous comprehensive works done in other engineering disciplines and consider the lessons learned. In particular, the stochastic nature of the fatigue life of composite materials has been captured by probabilistic models presented in literature, but until now has not been evaluated in the context of construction materials. In this paper, various simple fatigue life models are presented and the Sendeckyj wear-out model based on the strength-life-equal-rank assumption is applied to fatigue data from a variety of material types and configurations intended for civil engineering structures. This approach uses maximum likelihood estimates to optimize the Weibull distribution parameters fitting experimental fatigue data to develop S-N curves for any probability of failure. The results presented show that the model is versatile and can be calibrated to describe the probabilistic nature of both the static and fatigue response of FRP composite materials for construction and building applications.