Blunt and Sharp Notch Behaviour of Glare Laminates

Glare laminates are materials that consist of alternating aluminium and glass prepreg layers especially designed for aeroplane structures. The result is a material that combines the properties of its constituents and the properties of a bonded structure. Some of the favourable characteristics of Glare are its fatigue, impact and fire resistance properties and the possibility to create tailored design solutions. After 25 years of development and extensive investigations within the aerospace environment, Glare is now ready to be applied for industrial production. It will be applied in large parts of the new Airbus A380 fuselage, which is planned to have its first flight in 2004. This research describes the behaviour of Glare with holes that are made within production and the behaviour when the material is damaged due to an impact like for example a bird strike or an engine seperationf what creates cracks. These holes and this damage are regarded as blunt and sharp notches respectively. The failure mechanisms that were observed are investigated and function as the basis for the development of engineering calculation methods for the blunt and sharp notch behaviour of arbitrary Glare laminates. Additional research concerning the behaviour of spliced Glare laminates in the presence of notches, the presence of a crack in a row of holes and the development of Glare with crack stoppers is presented.
Aerospace Engineering