Residual strength of GFRP at high-cycle fatigue

Degradation of the residual strength of a glass-fiber-reinforced polyester composite of a lay-up typical of the wind rotor blade material is studied at low-cycle fatigue. A gradual reduction of the residual strength is observed as expected for GRP, accompanied by an increasing scatter of strength. The residual strength model based on the strength-life equal rank assumption yields an accurate approximation of experimental data. The strength reduction at a stress level corresponding to high-cycle fatigue (N > 10⁶ cycles) appears to correlate well with the test results at higher stress levels, which indicates that the strength degradation at the design stress level can be evaluated using low-cycle tests. Assuming that the parameters of the strength degradation model do not depend on the applied stress level, the residual strength data obtained in low stress level tests of comparatively short duration can be used to estimate the average fatigue life at the same stress thus reducing the total test time.