Slow Cracking in Composite Materials: Catastrophic Fracture of Composite Structures

To avoid catastrophic failure of a large structure is to design the material’s microstructure in such as a way as to render any crack that forms innocuous thereby raising the integrity of that structure. Structural integrity (SI) embraces contributions from materials science and engineering and fabrication and processing technology. It combines a number of interacting factors: the criticality of the application; the accessibility for and ability to inspect vital parts and components; the intended use including load spectrum and time; the consequences of impact, fatigue, environment, temperature and hostile environment; the nature of inherent flaws; and the properties of the material system utilised; and it takes into account “human factors”.