Fatigue of Fiber-reinforced Composites

Dr Anastasios P. Vassilopoulos is a research and teaching associate of the Composite Construction Laboratory (CCLab) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne. He obtained his PhD in 2001 from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics of the University of Patras, Greece. Since 1996 he has worked as a research engineer in competitive European research projects in the field of wind energy. His expertise is in fatigue of composites under complex, irregular stress states. He has introduced a multiaxial fatigue failure criterion for fiber-reinforced composites and he has proposed a fatigue life prediction methodology for composite materials under spectrum fatigue complex loading patterns. Dr Vassilopoulos has been a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece since 1996, and several scientific societies, such as the European Society for Composite Materials (ESCM), and the European Structural Integrity Society (ESIS). Prof. Dr. Thomas Keller is a full professor at EPFL and the Director of the Composite Construction Laboratory (CCLab), which he founded in 2000. His research work is focused on fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite and hybrid materials with an emphasis on lightweight multifunctional structures. He is a founding and council member of the International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC) and a founding and executive committee member of the Composite Bridge Alliance Europe (COBRAE).

• 1. Introduction to the Fatigue of Fiber-reinforced Polymer Composites.- 2. Experimental Characterization of Fiber-reinforced Composite Materials.- 3. Statistical Analysis of Fatigue Data.- 4. Modeling the Fatigue Behavior of Fiber-reinforced Composite Materials Under Constant Amplitude Loading.- 5. Fatigue of Adhesively-bonded GFRP Structural Joints.- 6. Macroscopic Fatigue Failure Theories for Multiaxial Stress States.- 7. Life Prediction Under Multiaxial Complex Stress States of Variable Amplitude.